Patna, April 8 (PTI): Patna High Court today issued notices to Yashwant Sinha, former finance minister and presently minister for external affairs, Union finance secretary, CBI and a host of others in connection with the mega financial scandal known as UTI and Mauritius route scams.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Ravi S. Dhavan and Justice Shashank Kumar Singh admitted a PIL filed by Basant Kumar Choudhary, convener of a social organisation Jan Chaukidar (People’s Watch) and directed Sinha, Union finance secretary, director Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), director of revenue intelligence, government of India and chairman of UTI (Unit Trust of India) to submit replies within three weeks.

The petitioner asked the court to issue direction for restraining Union finance ministry and central board of direct taxes from issuing tax free bonds worth Rs 5000 crore to meet the shortfall resulting from foreclosure of seven UTI-I.

The petitioner also asked the court to issue a writ of mandamus commanding the CBI to probe the role of UTI and then finance minister Yashwant Sinha in bailing out the Calcutta Stock Exchange in May 2001 by buying Rs 25 crore worth of DSQ Software at unreasonable prices.

The petitioner also requested the court to issue a writ of mandamus commanding the CBI to probe and fix criminal liabilities on responsible persons into the various acts of commission and omission by the authorities in UTI resulting in loss of thousands of crores of public money by way of shortfalls in the value of US-64 and MIP schemes of UTI.

The petition accused Sinha of influencing authorities in UTI to invest in the equities of Ketan Parekh favourites like Aftec Infosy, Himachal Futuristics, Zee Telefilms, Pentamedia, DSQ etc.

Sinha has also been charged with openly helping the fake mauritius based so called overseas corporate bodies in avoiding tax net to the tune of rs. 3000 crore.