The monitoring bench of the Patna High Court (PHC) yesterday directed the CBI to come out with a specific reply regarding time required by it to complete at least five cases relating to multi crore animal husbandry department scandal.
The bench comprising justices, S N Jha and S J Mukhopadhya gave this directive after reviewing the cases RC 20/96, RC 41/96, RC 33/96, RC 64/96 and RC 76/96. It wanted to know from the investigating agency on whose level these cases were pending and in what period would these cases be disposed off.
Joint director (east) submitted that the five cases dealing with the conspiracy part of the scandal would be cleared by the first week of March.
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The court was informed that that out of five cases three were pending with the DIG, Patna and one case each was pending at the level of joint director and SP levels.
Joint Director, U N Biswas assured the court that would clear the case RC 33/96 by February 28. The DIG, Ranjit Sinha sought twelve days time to forward the cases RC 20/96, RC 76/96 and RC 41/96. Javed Ahmed, S.P. took similar plea and assured the bench that he would forward the case RC 64/96 to the DIG with his comments by March 5. The court would take up the case again on March 5.
DIG Ranjit Singh told the court that certain vested interests had indulged in his `character assassination and requested the judges to seek a report from the CBI director, Joginder Singh regarding his conduct and role into the investigation. Since he could not go to the press he was unable to explain his position, said Sinha.
It may be mentioned here that Ranjit Sinha had been taken off the case and the Ranchi based SP, N C Dhondiyal had been shifted to Bihar Military Police as DIG.
Earlier, the Judges grilled the CBI and IT for the delay in unravelling the case. It told the CBI that while it showed exemplary urgency in unearthing the Hawala scandal it was not working with similar zeal to bring the AHD case to the logical conclusion. They wanted to know the cause of delay in filing the chargesheets against the involved persons when the case was being investigated for the past one year.
The counsel for the petitioners Sushil Kumar Modi and others, Ravi Shanker, accused the CBI of adopting double standards since it had failed to arrest senior politicians despite having ample evidences against them. Another counsel, Basant Kumar Choudhry, wanted to know as to why the CBI had not filed a similar cases against other politicians for amassing wealth disproportionate to their known source of income. He reminded the court that the CBI had filed a special case against the Janata Dal MLA, now in jail for amassing huge wealth.