As a petition accusing Rahul Gandhi of having illegally confined a girl was dismissed by Supreme Court, CBI is likely to send a Letters Rogatory to a foreign country seeking legal help suspecting a conspiracy to malign his image was hatched there.

The agency is likely to send the judicial request to the country seeking its help in the investigation and to track the culprits behind the email, the sources said without divulging the name of the country.

Highly placed CBI sources said the LRs were likely to be sent soon.

Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a petition against Gandhi and slapped costs of Rs 10 lakh, including Rs 5 lakh on an ex-SP MLA, who had filed it for damaging his image.

The Apex Court also directed the CBI to continue its probe against the petitioner ex-Samajwadi Party MLA Kishore Samrite and other persons who are involved in filing of the petition and asked it to submit a report within six months.

Samrite filed his plea on the basis of the email which relied on reports carried by some websites, the agency sources added.

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The Supreme Court on Thursday slapped a Rs.5 lakh fine on an ex-SP MLA while dismissing as without substance his petition against Rahul Gandhi in which he had alleged that the Congress leader had confined a girl in Uttar Pradesh.

"The allegation is without substance and without an iota of evidence," a bench of justices BS Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar said.

"The reputation of respondent no 6 (Rahul Gandhi) has been damaged by the undesirable act of the petitioner (ex-Samajwadi Party MLA Kishore Samrite)," the bench said.

The Apex Court further said the petition filed against Gandhi was "misconceived" and that Samrite abused the process of law on the basis of incorrect statement.

The bench passed the order on an appeal filed by Samrite challenging an order of the Allahabad High Court which had dismissed his plea against Gandhi and imposed a cost of Rs 50 lakh on him for filing a frivolous petition. The high court had also directed a CBI probe against the ex-SP MLA from Madhya Pradesh.

Samrite had then approached the Apex Court against the High Court's order.

Rejecting his plea, the Supreme Court said, "the petition filed by him was not bonafide" and there was no case of illegal confinement as the girl, who was allegedly kidnapped, had made no complaint.

The bench, however, said that the cost imposed by the High Court was exorbitant and reduced it.

It said that the CBI will continue with its probe against Samrite and other persons who are involved in filing of the frivolous petition and asked it to submit a report within six months.

The Apex Court on October 1 had reserved its order on the plea challenging the March 7, 2011 order of the Allahabad High Court.

Samrite, who is facing a CBI probe for dragging Gandhi's name in the case, had submitted in his plea that the High Court had wrongly dismissed his petition by imposing exemplary costs of Rs 50 lakh.

He had insisted that his petition was maintainable and that the Division Bench of the High Court exceeded its jurisdiction by transferring the matter from a single bench to itself.

He had submitted before the Apex Court that the High Court had erroneously tagged his petition with another and had deprived him of his right to be heard.

He had said the two petitions were different in nature and the names of persons in illegal confinement mentioned in them were different.

He had said the three persons, i.e, the girl and her parents produced before the High Court, were different from those mentioned in his petition.

The CBI had told the Apex Court that its probe has found that the case against Gandhi was based on "non-existent" claims.

Gandhi's counsel had argued that Samrite's petition was politically motivated to tarnish the image of the young politician.

He had also raised objections to the averments made by Samrite in his affidavit, saying nobody can accuse the judges of being biased.

Samrite had said that the CBI did not follow the proper procedure in probing the case and had registered the regular case without making a preliminary inquiry.

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Speculation of an imminent Cabinet reshuffle gained fresh momentum on Tuesday with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi meeting President Pranab Mukherjee separately.

The end of 'pitr paksh', considered an inauspicious period by Hindus, and the beginning of the navaratra season, set abuzz reports that a change in the government was on the cards, possibly this week.

There was no official word on what transpired at the meetings which fuelled fresh speculation about the changes in the Council of Ministers that could take place before Mukherjee leaves on Oct 20 for his ancestral home in Miriti in West Bengal for Durga Puja festivities.

The Prime Minister's meeting for an hour came in the morning before he left for Hyderabad on a day's visit, while Gandhi met Mukherjee in the evening for 40 minutes.       

There was no certainty over whether Rahul Gandhi, who is also likely to meet Mukherjee on Wednesday, would enter the government in the face of strong demands from the party men to assume a "larger" role.

    

There has been speculation about reshuffle in the Cabinet for quite some time now, especially after the exit of Trinamool Congress ministers both at the levels of Cabinet and Ministers of State levels.

There have been berths vacated by DMK representatives A Raja and Dayanidhi Maran in the last two years after their names cropped in the 2G scam.  However, DMK President M Karunanidhi has recently made clear that his party will not not like to reclaim their lost berths.

Congress sources said that the reshuffle and induction could be largely from the party. There is speculation that some young faces, considered close to Rahul, like Manicka Tagore and Meenakshi Natarajan could be inducted into the council of ministers. 

Some among the young ministers like Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Jitin Prasada may get promoted to Cabinet rank or get independent charge as Minister of State.

The exercise could see some of the ministers holding charges of two ministries losing one of the portfolios.

HRD Minister Kapil Sibal (Telecom),  Road and Transport Minister C P Joshi (Railways),  Law Minister Salman Khurshid (Minority Affairs)  and Corporate Affairs Affairs Minister M Veerappa Moily (Power) and Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi (MSME, S and T and Earth Sciences).

     

With six ministers from TMC leaving, two to three Congress leaders from West Bengal are expected to be accommodated. The names of Deepa Dashmunshi and Adhir Choudhury, known detractors of TMC chief Mamata Banerjee and West Bengal PCC chief Pradeep Bhatacharjee are doing the rounds.

A reshuffle of the AICC secretariat is also on the cards and Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi is expected to get a larger responsibility in the organisation.

With the death of Vilasrao Deshmukh, there is a vacancy for a cabinet minister from Maharashtra.

Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahai and Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaisawal have come under attack from the Opposition on the coal block allocation issue.

Changes in the government and the party could be taking place in tandem as there is a possibility that some of the ministers would be drafted for party work, sources said.

They said the exercise could be a major affair as the team would be leading the party in the next Lok Sabha polls.

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