Lucknow:
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has come to the rescue of former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh.
The Kanpur Police has given a clean chit to Mr Singh in a case of fraud and money laundering by filing a closure report citing lack of evidence.
Amar Singh was accused of laundering Rs 400 crore through shell companies during his stint in the Uttar Pradesh Development Council - a body that he was heading from 2003-07 which was meant to bring big ticket investments into the state.
The year-long investigation by the Economic Offences Wing of the UP Police was suddenly wrapped up by the Kanpur district police in a matter of days, which concluded that there is no evidence to prove that Amar Singh committed fraud.
"The party does not want anyone to be framed in any case" is how the Samajwadi Party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary explained the move.
The clean chit to the former Samajwadi Party leader raised several questions. But rushing to the conclusion that this is new found love between the Mulayam and Amar would be premature.
In Amar Singh's words "Probing the development council means probing Mulayam Singh."
Mulayam may have fallen out with Amar, but is still friends with almost all industrialists those who were once a party of the UP development council. And perhaps closest to Amitabh Bachchan, who figures in the FIR lodged in Kanpur but has never been questioned by the police.
Aware that the decision to close the case against Amar Singh would be hard to explain, both Mulayam Singh and Akhilesh Yadav kept avoiding through most of Saturday.
Mulayam was touring Aligarh while Akhilesh kept himself busy with events throughout the day.
But the man whose complaint started it all, the complainant Shiva Kant Tripathi, is not giving up his fight. He says that a protest petition in the courts is on its way.
The Enforcement Directorate is already probing the allegations of money laundering. So it's now up to the lower courts in Kanpur and Allahabd to decide whether they will accept the closure report in this case.