Lucknow, Nov. 5: Allahabad High Court today dismissed a clutch of public interest litigations seeking Mayawati’s prosecution in the Taj Corridor corruption case, boosting her efforts at a political comeback after the March election defeat.

The former chief minister is accused of embezzling Rs 17cr from the Rs 175cr project, but a CBI court had suspended proceedings in 2008 after the investigative agency failed to obtain then governor T.V. Rajeswar’s sanction for prosecuting her.

“We stand by the decision of the CBI court. All the petitions were devoid of merit,” the division bench of Justices Imtiaz Murtaza and A.K. Singh said today, dismissing the seven petitions.

One of the petitioners’ lawyers, S.C. Pandey, said he would “seriously explore the option” of challenging the verdict in the Supreme Court.

Unless the apex court overturns the order, the case will stay suspended and eventually die out, lawyers said. That would mean Mayawati and co-accused Naseemuddin Siddiqui, a former cabinet colleague, would not have to face trial.

For now, the judgment may have handed Mayawati an opportunity to claim that the charges of personal corruption that have hung heavy on her for a decade were politically motivated.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief had been lying low since her party was trounced in the last Assembly polls, but indications are that she will now tom-tom the judgment to try and make a comeback.

“The BSP will now fast regain the political ground we had lost in the last polls,” party state chief S.P. Maurya said.

Akhilesh Yadav, the Samajwadi chief minister who is facing flak over law and order, refused to comment on the court order but said: “The leader in question (Mayawati) was rejected by the people in the last election. The people know who is wrong or who is right.”

The BJP, which had initiated the controversy and pulled out support to Mayawati’s minority government on the issue 10 years ago, took a softened stand today.

“We welcome the high court order but Mayawati should take lessons from her mistakes,” said Kalraj Mishra, Rajya Sabha member and BJP national vice-president.

The petitioners’ identities remained unclear as they fought the case through their lawyers, but BSP Rajya Sabha member Satish Chandra Mishra alleged they were Samajwadi activists.

“It is obvious that the petitions, filed on the eve of the 2009 general election, were politically motivated. Some petitioners had contested the 2009 polls and lost,” he said.

Mayawati is not entirely out of the woods, however. A private citizen’s petition is pending in the Supreme Court seeking a review of its July 2012 decision to quash a CBI probe into Mayawati’s allegedly disproportionate assets in relation to the Taj Corridor case.

The apex court had ruled that the CBI had exceeded its brief by stretching the Taj Corridor probe, ordered by a different bench, into an investigation of Mayawati’s assets in general.

But the Supreme Court recently modified its stand, clarifying that the CBI was “free to pursue that line of inquiry if it wants to, after getting sanctions”.