Supreme Court upholds CBI probe into gutka' scam in TN

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday upheld an order passed by the Madras high court entrusting the “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 CJI Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Kanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud dismi-ssed a special leave petition filed by E. Sivakumar, an offici-al in the health depar-tment and an accused in the case opposing the CBI probe.

Writing the judgment, Justice Kanwil-kar said, the high court had considered the question regarding the necessity to ensure a fair probe 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, has now been directly answered.

The bench said for instilling confidence in the minds of the victims as well as public at large, the high court predicated that it was but necessary to entrust the investigation of such a crime to the 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 the CBI.

The bench agreed with submissions of senior advocate P. Wilson (who appeared for the respondent/writ petitioner) that the high court has cogitated over all the issues exhaustively and being fully satisfied about the necessity to ensure fair investigation of the crime in question, justly issued transferred the probe to the CBI.

On the submission of senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi that the petitioner was not heard, the Bench noted the arguments of Mr. Wilson that the accused had no right to be heard at the stage of investigation. Therefore that per se cannot be the basis to label the impugned judgment as a nullity.

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 said.

The Bench also rejected the submission that when another Division Bench had not considered CBI probe, another Division Bench cannot order a CBI for the same cause of action. It said “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.”Eom.