By IANS
New Delhi : The Delhi High Court has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to submit on Thursday a detailed report on its strategy to probe alleged irregularities in the 2005 deal for French Scorpene submarines.
A division bench comprising of Justices T.S. Thakur and Veena Birbal asked the agency: “Tell us by tomorrow to whom you will assign (investigation officer) this case and in what time it would be completed.”
The bench also asked the petitioner, Prashant Bhushan of the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, to suggest in the court Thursday the aspects that needed to be covered by the CBI in its investigation.
Earlier, the court pulled up the agency for not investigating the matter properly.
“We would like to cross-check your investigation officer to know what has been done on the complaint alleging kickbacks in the Scorpene deal. We feel dissatisfied with what you have done so far. If you have tried to shield someone, then we would come down very heavily on you,” it said.
The CBI, despite repeated questions from the court on what steps it had taken, failed to convince the court that nothing was found in its preliminary inquiry.
“Get the report of the investigating officer in the open court. We would like to see what has been done so far and if no inquiry has been conducted, then it means that there has been a deliberate attempt to protect someone,” the court said.
Counsel Bhushan had claimed that the CBI could have probed the Scorpene deal as the agency had managed to gather some evidence in the matter during its investigations into what has come to be known as the Navy War Room leak case.
Coming down harshly on the CBI, the high court said the two cases were different.
“Have you investigated the Scorpene Deal separately and filed a status report?”
On a submission by the petitioner that the CBI had refused to register his complaint, the court remarked, “What business has the CBI director to say that I cannot investigate the matter?
“You are an investigating agency and you should be ready for a probe on every complaint.”
Seeking a direction to initiate an inquiry into the defence deal, Bhushan said he had approached the court through a public interest litigation (PIL) after the CBI failed to act on his complaint for a separate probe in the defence deal.
In a 2006 complaint, the petitioner had alleged that one of the accused in the Navy War Room leak case had sent an e-mail to the French company manufacturing the submarine demanding four percent commission for brokering the deal on behalf of a political party.
The Intelligence Bureau (IB) had seized the e-mail, counsel said.
Various government agencies, including the IB, were involved in investigating the war room leak and in February 2006 authorities decided to hand over the case to the CBI for initiating criminal proceedings against the dismissed Naval officers and civilians, said the petition.
Retired navy officers Ravi Shankaran, Kulbhushan Parashar and businessman Abhishek Verma were accused of being involved in the alleged leak of sensitive information from the Navy War Room.