New Delhi: CBI was Wednesday grilled by a special court which even questioned its "competence" in a coal blocks allocation scam case after the investigating officer (IO) said that he was unable to devote time as his "senior officers are insisting" that he complete investigation in other cases.
The scathing observations by the court came during the hearing of a coalscam case pertaining to allocation of Rajhara North coal block in Jharkhand to accused firm Vini Iron and Steel Udyog Ltd (VISUL).
The court was infuriated after the counsel appearing for various accused, including former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda, moved applications that the case records supplied to them by the CBI were "insufficient and illegible".
At this juncture, Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar asked IO Vijai Chettiar as why he has not complied with the court's order of supplying documents required by the accused.
Responding to this, the IO said he was busy in a number of other cases and his senior officers were insisting that he complete the probe in those cases as well.
"This is a strange kind of submission made by the IO. When one charge sheet has already been filed in the court then it is the duty of the prosecution, duly supported by the investigating agency, to present and pursue the case in right earnest and it does not lie in the mouth of the IO to say that being busy in some other matter he could not devote time in the present case," the judge said.
"Either I conclude that you (IO) are incompetent or you are not rendering any help to the prosecution or your agency is incompetent," the judge observed.
During the hearing, which commenced at 10 am, the court directed the IO to supply all the necessary documents required by the defence counsel today itself and adjourned the matter for 2 pm.
As the hearing resumed at 2 pm, the judge himself saw the documents supplied to the defence counsel and found that some of the records were illegible or some portion was cut in the photocopies.
The court observed that its function is to conduct a free and fair trial and the role of prosecution is to assist in trial while the role of the investigating agency is to render help to the prosecution.
The court, in its order, directed the CBI's DIG and SP concerned "to ensure that the IO Inspector Vijai Chettiar devotes proper time to the present matter also."
The court, however, clarified that its "direction should not be understood as stating that he (IO) should be divested of all other duties as it is the bounden duty of IO to properly pursue the present matter also lest this court is again faced with the situation where IO expresses his inability to do proper "Pairvi" (presentation) of the case."
Apart from VISUL and Koda, ex-Jharkhand chief secretary Ashok Kumar Basu, former coal secretary H C Gupta, public servants Bipin Bihari Singh and Basant Kumar Bhattacharya, Kolkata-based VISUL's Director Vaibhav Tulsyan, chartered accountant Navin Kumar Tulsyan and Koda's alleged close aide Vijay Joshi are accused in the case.
These eight individual accused were granted bail on February 28 by the court.
During the hearing, the defence counsel submitted that in pursuance to the court's earlier order, they had contacted the IO on phone or through e-mail for the documents but he did not respond to it.
Even, senior public prosecutor V K Sharma complained that the records with him were also illegible and he has even taken up the matter with senior officers of the CBI.
"At this stage, IO states that even photocopies of the original documents retained by him are in the same condition as has been pointed out by the counsel. Again this is a strange submission which is beyond comprehension as to how on the basis of the said photocopies the prosecution could have proceeded further with the trial of the case," the court noted in its order.
However, the IO requested the court for release of the original documents already filed before it for the purposes of preparing proper copies to be supplied to the accused.
"It is directed that the necessary original documents be released to him (IO) upon receipt and he shall deposit back the original record with the Ahlmad after preparing necessary copies thereof," the court said while directing the concerned SP, CBI to supervise that the documents being now supplied to the accused persons "are complete and legible in all respect".
The court has now fixed the matter for hearing on March 17 and had directed the agency to complete the deficiencies in the documents.
The court, while granting bail to the eight individual accused on February 18, had observed that Koda and others holding high positions allegedly misappropriated the natural resources.
The court had then said that Koda and seven others, including Basu and H C Gupta, "clearly conspired together" to misappropriate important natural resources.
They were summoned as accused after the court had taken cognisance of the offences under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with 420 (cheating) and 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servants) of the IPC and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Out of these accused persons, CBI had not chargesheeted Navin Kumar Tulsyan saying no prosecutable evidence could come on record during the course of investigation.
However, the court had summoned him as an accused saying that being the chartered accountant, Navin allegedly gave a false certificate to facilitate VISUL to misrepresent about its net-worth and turn-over to acquire the coal block.
The CBI, in its charge sheet, had said that VISUL had applied for allocation of Rajhara North coal block on January 8, 2007 to the Ministry of Coal.
CBI said although the Jharkhand government and Steel Ministry did not recommend the case of VISUL for the coal block allocation, the 36th Screening Committee recommended the block to the accused firm.
