The Supreme Court today fixed February 1, 2011, for hearing on the case relating to alleged disproportionate assets of former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and his family members who have sought a review of its order directing a CBI inquiry into the case.

The apex court had ordered a CBI inquiry on March 1, 2007, into the alleged accumulation of disproportionate assets by Yadav, his sons Akhilesh, Prateek and daughter-in-law Dimple on a public interest litigation (PIL) by an advocate Vishwanath Chaturvedi.

The matter was listed before a Bench comprising Justices Altamas Kabir and H L Dattu which said all formalities relating to matter like pleadings etc, if not completed, have to be done before the next date of hearing.

The date for hearing on February 1 next year was fixed after the consent of the advocates of all parties which included Attorney General G E Vahanvati, senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for Yadav's and counsel for Chaturvedi.

The case was last heard by the apex court in February last year when CBI was criticised for its handling of the case with the court saying the agency was "acting at the behest" of the central government.

The court was unhappy about the ground on which CBI wanted withdrawal of a plea seeking direction permitting the agency to proceed further in the matter without any reference to the government.

The law officer had said the opinion of the Law Ministry was sought to withdraw an application under which CBI had sought filing of an inquiry report before the apex court and not the government.

Vahanvati, who was then the Solicitor General, had given the opinion in the case in November 2008 to the government for withdrawal of CBI's application for submitting report of the probe to the apex court.

The court had criticised the CBI decision.

The Attorney General had then said that his opinion in the case was on the point of law and during pendency of the matter detailed representations were made relating to the case which could be considered.

CBI had on December 6, 2008, moved the apex court seeking withdrawal of its earlier application of October, 2007 in which it had sought permission to place a status report before the court instead of submitting it to the central government as per the March 1, 2007 order.

The court wanted to know the reason from CBI for withdrawal of the application and had expressed its inclination to modify the order saying "the direction in the judgement to submit the report to the Centre was possibly a mistake".