CBI vs CBI: No clean chit for Alok Verma, but Supreme Court tells CVC to handover report to CBI director; next hearing on 20 Nov

The Supreme Court hearing in the CBI director Alok Verma’s case began with Justice AK Patnaik (retired judge heading the three-team CVC investigating panel) filing a 50-page report which noted that a few charges need further investigation. The Supreme Court bench said it will give CVC report to Verma in a sealed cover whereupon Verma can file his reponse and the court can take a decision.

Supreme Court has not given clean chit to Verma. The report is “complimentary on some charges, not-so-complimentary on some charges and very uncomplimentary on some charges,” the court said.

“Before taking any decision, we are of the view that the CVC report should be served on petitoner Alok Verma. It will be open for Verma to file his response in a sealed cover,” the bench noted . The Supreme Court said the decision to give the CVC report to Verma was necessary “in order to uphold public confidence in an institution like CBI.”

The top court also directed a copy of the CVC Report to be served to the office of Attorney General and Solicitor General. “The Centre will however not file any response to it at this stage,” Supreme Court noted.

The court was given no details with respect to the decisions taken by acting CBI director M Nageshwar Rao. Reacting to that, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said, “We will presume he has not taken any major decision.”

Special director of CBI Rakesh Asthana’s legal counsel, as well as the Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi asked the bench to make the details of the CVC report public repeatedly. Gogoi  declined the request .

The bench concluded the hearing by posting the matter for further hearing for 20 November.

A battery of reporters who appeared in the Supreme Court today, were:

Fali Nariman for Alok Verma Dushyant Dave for Common Cause Rajeev Dhavan for AK Bassi KK Venugopal for Union of India Tushar Mehta for CVC Mukul Rohatgi for Rakesh Asthana