Can't act as CBI's post office: HC

The Delhi High Court today said it would not act as a "post office" for the CBI and directed an NGO, which was seeking a probe into alleged corruption by BSNL officials, to place evidence before the investigating agency.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said that under the law, an individual has every right to file a complaint and even produce evidence before the agency, which has to look into it.

"We (the court) are not going to be the post office for the CBI. Please place the relevant evidence before the CBI. It shall be open to the agency to look into it and proceed in accordance with law," the bench observed.
 

The court's observation came during the hearing of a plea by NGO Telecom Watchdog, which sought investigation into a matter in which BSNL officials allegedly caused loss of about Rs 1,000 crore to the exchequer by releasing unauthorised payment to the subsidiary of a Chinese firm by fabricating documents.

The BSNL has refuted the allegations.

The NGO had filed an application to submit additional information in the matter.

In its reply, the CBI told the court that preliminary enquiry (PE) was underway.

"We are looking into the allegation and we will file our status report in a sealed cover before the next date of hearing," CBI counsel Sanjeev Bhandari submitted.

To this, the bench said it does not want to monitor the probe into the matter but the same should be time bound.

It fixed the matter for March 6 next year, by when the CBI has to submit its report.

The NGO has alleged that officials of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) had connived with M/s ZTE Telecom India Pvt Ltd, a Chinese contractor, and forged official records of BSNL so that "undue payments" of about Rs 1,000 crore could be released to the firm.

The NGO has claimed that they had filed a complaint on the issue on March 11 last year before CBI but the agency has not taken any action.

The plea has sought a direction to CBI to investigate the complaint in a time-bound manner.

It alleged that official documents were fabricated to release payment of 95.10 per cent "illegitimately" to M/s ZTE.