Dehradun: The Supreme Court will hear on November 22 an application filed by the Uttarakhand government seeking to withdraw the appeal filed by it against the High Court order which had directed a CBI probe against former Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat into corruption allegations against him.
A bench of Justices MR Shah and MM Sundersh would hear the case on Tuesday.
The Uttarakhand government has filed the application on October 18 stating that the state government has decided to withdraw the SLP filed against the High Court's October 27, 2020 order.
The Uttarakhand High Court had directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to register an FIR against the then Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on basis of allegations levelled against him.
Challenging the High Court's order the government had approached the apex court and issued notices to the CBI and two journalists.
The top court had then stayed the High Court's "drastic order" for a CBI probe into corruption allegations against Rawat, saying it was passed without hearing him and taking "everybody by surprise".
The corruption allegations levelled by two journalists pertained to the money transferred allegedly into the accounts of relatives of Rawat in 2016 to support appointment of a person as head of 'Gau Seva Ayog' of Jharkhand when Rawat was the in-charge of Jharkhand BJP unit.
The Uttarakhand High Court had also quashed the FIR registered by the state government against two journalists -- Umesh Sharma and Shiv Prasad Semwal -- for cheating, forgery, and several other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The apex court, however, had not stayed the part of the High Court order by which it had quashed the FIR lodged against the two scribes.
The FIR against the journalists was lodged for posting a video on Facebook alleging that one Amritesh Chauhan from Jharkhand deposited money after demonetisation into the bank account of a couple, Harendra Singh Rawat and his wife Savita Rawat, who are allegedly related to the chief minister. Harendra, a retired professor, had lodged the FIR at a police station in Dehradun against Sharma and also alleged that the journalist was blackmailing him. —ANI