By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Friday dismissed a plea for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the alleged mafia links of Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal.
A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan dismissed the plea by a Delhi-based journalist M. Furquan saying that “the petitioner has been given sufficient opportunity to take the recourse of law” to have the matter probed.
“The petition needs no order,” said the bench, dismissing the petition.
The court ruling came as Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanian informed it that the government has already conducted a thorough probe into the allegations about funding of Jet Airways by fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel, but had found nothing
The law officer said the government had also got the matter investigated for possible violation of Foreign Exchange Management Act, but no violation was detected.
Subramanian sought dismissal of the petition saying that the Bombay High Court had earlier dismissed the matter after the government told the court about the results of its investigations.
Appearing for Jet Airways, senior counsel Harish Salve told the court that even the United States had got the allegations probed by its own agencies when the airline had sought permission to operate its flights from there.
The US granted permission only after it was sure of Jet’s credentials, said Salve, adding that a country that has put Dawood Ibrahim on its terror list would take no chances in case of any evidence of airline’s mafia links.
Earlier, former law minister Shanti Bhushan appearing for the petitioner contended that a joint secretary level officer had written to the union ministry of home affairs saying there were intelligence inputs that the Jet Airways chief had links with Ibrahim and Shakeel.
Bhushan contended that existence of such a letter had made it imperative for the government to register a formal First Information Report and have the matter probed by an investigative agency formally as per provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code.
But the government has done nothing like that and got the matter probed only informally, he said. But the bench did not heed his plea.