New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday upheld an order passed by the Madras High Court entrusting the multi-crore ‘Gutka scam’ investigation to the CBI as high-ranking officials of the State as well as the Central government are involved.
A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Kanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud dismissed a special leave petition filed by E. Sivakumar, an official in the health department and an accused in the case, who opposed the CBI probe.
Writing the judgment, Justice Kanwilkar said the High Court had rightly handled the question regarding the “necessity to ensure a fair and impartial investigation of the crime, whose tentacles were not limited to the State of Tamil Nadu but transcended beyond to other States and may be overseas besides involving high ranking officials of the State as well as the Central Government”.
The Bench said for instilling confidence in the minds of the victims as well as the public at large, the High Court predicated that it was but necessary to entrust the investigation of such a crime to CBI. “Viewed thus, there is no infirmity in the conclusion reached by the High Court in the impugned judgment, for having entrusted the investigation to CBI”, the Bench said.
The Bench agreed with submissions of senior advocate P. Wilson (who appeared for DMK legislator J. Anbazhagan on whose petition the High Court had ordered the CBI probe) that the High Court had cogitated over all the issues exhaustively and being fully satisfied about the necessity to ensure fair investigation of the crime in question, justly transferred the probe to the CBI.
On the submission of senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi appearing for petitioner Sivakumar that the health official was not heard, the Bench noted that a person who is named as an accused in the FIR, who otherwise has no right to be heard at the stage of investigation or to have an opportunity of hearing as a matter of course, cannot be heard to say that the direction issued to transfer the investigation to CBI is a nullity.
The Bench also rejected the submission that the High Court cannot order CBI probe when another Division Bench of the HC had not considered such probe for the same cause of action.
“The view so taken by the High Court in the facts of the present case, in our opinion, being a possible view, the ground under consideration is devoid of merit. Suffice it to observe that it is not a case of disregarding the binding decision or precedent of the Coordinate Bench of the same High Court. We say so because in the impugned judgment, the decision of the Coordinate Bench has been distinguished", said the SC Bench.The SC Bench also rejected petitioner.
Sivakumar's contention that the HC had ordered the CBI probe on a politically motivated PIL coming from a DMK legislator (Anbazhagan), who had raised the gutka scam both inside and outside the State Assembly.
