By IANS
New Delhi : The Delhi High Court Thursday granted three months’ time to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to submit a detailed report on the investigation into the 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 to file its reply by April 25. “Come to us after three months and inform us if a first information report (FIR) in this case can be registered or not,” it said.
The court Wednesday 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.
Seeking a direction to initiate an inquiry into the defence deal, former law minister Prashant 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 what has come to be known as Navy War Room leak case had sent an e-mail to the French company manufacturing the submarine demanding on behalf of a political party four percent commission for brokering the deal.
The Intelligence Bureau (IB) had seized the e-mail, Bhushan said.
Various government agencies, including the IB, were involved in investigating the Navy 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.