Miffed Bombay High Court summons top official

The Bombay high court on Thursday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)’s joint director, west zone, to remain present in court during the next hearing on September 29 as the agency had failed to submit a satisfactory report related to its probe into the “high and mighty people” who contributed in the construction of the Adarsh society.

“Your confidential report is completely vague and it contains nothing (in terms of what we expected),” said Justice Abhay Oka while hearing the petition.

A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice A.A. Sayed was hearing a petition filed by activist Praveen Wategaonkar. The petition states that while investigating the Adarsh scam, the CBI had arrested former MLC Kanhaiyalal Gidwani, one of the founder members of Adarsh. While seeking Gidwani’s custody, the CBI had stated in its remand application that there are some high and mighty people involved in the scam as they dealt with files related to Adarsh and four flats were reserved for them.

According to the petitioner, the CBI never revealed their names in the main as well as supplementary chargesheets. Therefore, he requested the court to give a direction to CBI and ask it to reveal those names before the court and also produce documents related to the case it in the court. The court also gave a similar direction.

On Thursday, CBI’s lawyer submitted its confidential report. However, the court did not find it satisfactory, both in terms of the documents sought by the petitioner as well as the reports regarding the high and mighty people who contributed in the construction of Adarsh.

Therefore, the court asked CBI counsel to submit a fresh affidavit on September 29.

While the hearing was going on, Mr Wategaonkar argued that unless the court gives a strict order, the CBI would not give anything concrete in its affidavit. Mr Wategaonkar further said it was because of HC observation the CBI had probed the Adarsh scam.

The court accepted the petitioner’s point and directed the CBI to tell his topmost officer of west zone, i.e., the joint director, to be present in court during the next hearing.