The judges' criticism, which came within days of the startling arrests of four JMM leaders, was interpreted in political circles as a signal to the CBI to try and book the bribe-givers along with the alleged bribe-takers.
The case is a political cause celebre because the names of former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao and some of his senior colleagues figure. There has been no evidence so far that the money came from them and the JMM leaders have claimed that it came from political donations.
A division bench comprising Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice D K Jain, at the request of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) counsel Gopal Subramaniam, gave the agency ten more days to complete investigations. This, the judges observed, was the state of affairs despite their trying to impress upon the CBI that considering the grave nature of the charges, investigations could not brook any delay.
After perusing the files for nearly an hour, the judges, who have been monitoring the progress in the investigations, said that they would prefer not to make any observations at this stage at it might injure the rights of accused persons.
Referring to newspaper reports regarding the examination of former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, P N Lekhi, counsel for petitioner Ravinder Kumar, alleged that the agency had not carried out investigations honestly against Rao.
Quoting Section 160 of the code of criminal procedure, Lekhi said the correct procedure for investigation was to send a notice to an accused, asking him to appear before a police officer on a specified date.
However, in respect of Narasimha Rao, this had not been followed, he contended.
This was in sharp contrast to the attitude of the agency when officers had sent a notice to examine Ravinder Kumar. Lekhi had then written back to the CBI saying that he wanted that the examination take place at Lekhi's residence. This was refused by the CBI, stating that this was not proper.
The petitioner's counsel questioned how could the CBI adopt different approaches for different persons.
Such an investigation is a sham, he alleged. Where is the honesty of the investigating agency, he questioned, adding that it was one thing to be interrogated at a police station and another to be interrogated in the comfort of the drawing room. Submitting that over 80 gazetted officers had been put behind bars since September last year, Lekhi asked What is special about Narasimha Rao, Satish Sharma, V C Shukla and Bhajan Lal?
He also wondered why the agency had arrested only those accused of having received the money while the bribe givers had not yet been arrested.
Further, he submitted that various versions regarding the entire incident of payoffs had emerged before the CBI. The least that the CBI should have done is to start investigations regarding the person whose name figured in all the versions. This person, according to Lekhi, was Narasimha Rao.
The judges said that, at this stage, they would like to say the least and urged Lekhi to reserves his submissions for a later stage.
Earlier, seeking another ten-day period for completing the investigations, CBI counsel Gopal Subramaniam submitted that some of the best investigators of the CBI were engaged with the case.
He said that the CBI team had visited Ranchi and were coordinating with the income-tax authorities.
Claiming that the CBI team had also been working on holidays, Subramaniam said that the delay in completing the investigations was due to the checking of leads given by one of the witnesses.
Subramaniam assured the court that the CBI was seized of the importance of the matter and that it was maintaining a chart of the progress made in the investigations on a daily basis.
The judges observed that considering the nature of allegations, this seemed to be the most important case before the nation.
Lekhispeak
Hyderabad has become the capital of scams. Thus spake P N Lekhi, counsel for petitioner Ravinder Kumar, yesterday in court.
Unimpressed with the CBI arresting four JMM MPs last week, he said only the minor chors had been arrested while the Ali Baba was outside
