The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday submitted before the Supreme Court that the premier agency cannot take orders from the apex court if a party in the case wanted to probe home minister P Chidambaram’s alleged role in the second-generation (2G) scam. The trial on the case has already commenced in a special court and, therefore, the apex court’s supervisory role is over, CBI counsel K K Venugopal emphasised during resumed hearing of the case.
It was the prerogative of the trial court to add more accused or direct investigation against new persons, Venugopal said. The apex court cannot do it even though it is monitoring the case on the controversial multi-crore spectrum allocation.
Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy, who moved the pertinent application before the court, wanted investigation against Chidambaram also. According to him, Chidambaram was also involved in the fixing of price of the spectrum, as he had held meetings in 2008 with then telecom minister A Raja to discuss the prices.
The CBI maintained that the case of Chidambaram was different from that of Raja and his fellow party MP Kanimozhi—both of whom are now in jail. The investigation in their case has been completed and chargesheets have been filed. Thus, ordering a probe against a new suspect was only in the domain of the special court now dealing with the scam, Venugopal said.
The bench consisting of justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly expressed doubts over the date of commencement of the trial and the power of the court under the Criminal Procedure Code. The special court is only at the stage of framing charges, and there could thus be still time to order investigation on the basis of new evidence.
The CBI will reply to the court on this point tomorrow.
