Coal scam: Court says CBI lacks 'basic skills of investigation'

New Delhi: Irked with the way CBI handled probe in a coal blocks allocation scam case, a Delhi court today said the agency’s officers lacked “basic skills of investigation” and ordered its Director Ranjit Sinha and all concerned DIGs to personally look into the matter failing which they would be held “responsible”.

Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar also issued show cause notices to CBI inspector Rajbir Singh, investigating officer (IO) in a case in which a closure report was filed against Vikash Metals and Power Ltd, and its Superintendent of PoliceNirbhay Kumar to explain the lacunae in their probe in the case.

“I deem it appropriate that a show cause notice by way of the present order be issued to both IO Inspector Rajbir Singh and SP Nirbhay Kumar to explain the aforesaid circumstances in which material documents and statement of witnesses as mentioned in the present order were withheld from this court,” the judge said.

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“Their explanation will certainly enable this court to know as to whether these two officers lack basic skills of investigation which needs to be honed up or it was adeliberate act on their part,” the court said.

“The reply shall be filed in writing by tomorrow. Copy of this order shall also be sent to Director CBI and to all DIGs of CBI who are supervising investigation of coal block allocation cases. They shall personally look into all such matters lest in future also such kind of reports are filed in this court, for which they will be personally held responsible,” it said.

The court also observed that the agency was withholding documents from it for the reasons best known to them and even the statement of witnesses, recorded during the probe into the case, was not placed before it.

The court, in its order, noted that, “It was also found that during the course of investigation, IO also recorded statement of a number of persons under section 161 CrPC, such as that of Screening Committee members or number of other officers/ officials of Ministry of Coal and other departments but again for reasons best known to the IO he did not care to file them on record.”

The judge said that the documents were produced before him only when the court asked for it.

“Though, I shall be passing a separate order at a later date qua the fate of closure report but it is apparent from the aforesaid nature of exercise taken by the IO that for reasons best known to him, he chose to withhold material documents from this court,” the judge said.

The judge also said that CBI officers were not following the basics of the CrPC and even their crime manual during investigation of the case and even after repeated directions by the court, they were not paying any heed to it.

“I am rather constrained to observe that after going through a number of such case files in the past about one month since the time this special court has startedfunctioning, it is clear that CBI officers are not paying any heed to the well settled provisions of CrPC and even that of their Crime Manual before filing of final reports,” the judge said.

“The CBI officers have been repeatedly told by this court that closure reports should be detailed and duly supported by legally sustainable reasons but it appears that no heed is being paid by the CBI officers in this regard. Even the basic nuances of investigation appears to be missing,” it said.

The court observed that when it was going through the records, it found various documents were not filed before it. It also said that upon completion of further probe, the IO chose to file a closure report irrespective of the fact that whether the conclusion arrived at was legally sustainable or not.

CBI, in September 2012, had registered an FIR against Vikash Metals and Power Limited and its officials, accusing them of making false claims related to land allocation to get undue advantage in the coal block allocation.

The FIR was registered against Vikash Metals and Power Limited, its directors, including Vimal Patni, Vikash Patni and Anand Patni, and Anand Mallick who was the authorised signatory for the company.

They were booked for the alleged offences under sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and 420 (cheating) of the IPC.

CBI had earlier said that Vikash Metals and Power Limited wrongly claimed that it had been allocated 300 acre of land in Begusarai in Bihar by the Bihar Area Development Authority. But the agency had found that the land was de-allocated and directors of the company failed to inform the screening committee members about it, it had said.

PTI