Nearly half of new Uttar Pradesh ministers face criminal cases

UP deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya (R) faced criminal cases, including attempt to murder and wrongful restrain among others. Credit: PTI File Photo

Almost half of the newly appointed ministers in the Uttar Pradesh cabinet faced criminal cases, some of serious nature, according to a report by the poll rights body Association For Democratic Reforms(ADR).

The ADR, which analysed the sworn affidavits of 45 of the 53 ministers, who were administered the oath of office and secrecy here on Friday, said that as many as 22 ministers had declared criminal cases against them in their sworn affidavits.

''Of the ministers facing criminal charges, as many as 20 of them have declared serious criminal cases against them,'' an ADR functionary said here.

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He said that the details of eight of the newly appointed ministers were not analysed as six of them were not members of any of the houses while the self-sworn affidavits of two ministers-Jitin Prasada and Sanjay Nishad-were not available.

A few of the ministers in the list faced serious criminal cases including attempt to murder, kidnapping in order to cause death. Some others faced cases, including criminal intimidation, cheating, forgery, criminal breach of trust.

UP deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya faced criminal cases, including attempt to murder and wrongful restrain among others. Another cabinet minister Mayankeshwar Sharan Singh also faces attempt to murder case. Rakesh Sachan, another UP minister, faces charges of causing death by negligence while Ravindra Jaiswal has a case of kidnapping in order to murder against him.

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One of the ministers Daya Shankar Singh faces among others a case of voyeurism, which has been defined as ''viewing and/or capturing the image of a girl or woman going about her private acts, where she thinks that no one is watching her'' under section 354C of the Indian Penal Code. Incidentally Singh was accused of torturing his wife Swati Singh, a former UP minister. Swati Singh has filed a divorce petition against her husband.

There was no criminal case against chief minister Yogi Adityanath. The UP government had withdrawn all criminal cases against Adityanath during the latter's first term as CM. One of the cases against him pertained to hate speech.

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