SC notices to Govt, states and CBI

The Supreme Court today issued notices to all the states, National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, Union Territories, the CBI and the Cent...

The Supreme Court today issued notices to all the states, National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, Union Territories, the CBI and the Centre on five public interest litigation (PIL) petitions, three of them seeking a unified probe by the CBI into the Rs 32,000-crore fake stamp paper scam allegedly masterminded by Abdul Karim Telgi and two opposing it.

The state governments of Karnataka and Maharashtra have filed their affidavits indicating their willingness to hand over the probe to the CBI. Maharashtra said it submitted to the Bombay High court — which is monitoring the Telgi scam investigation by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) — that it had no objection to hand over the investigation to the CBI.

The two petitions filed in the apex court opposing the move are by noted social activist Anna Hazare and B.G. Deshmukh, former Cabinet Secretary and J. Ribeiro, former chief cop of Punjab, respectively. Their contention is that in many a case the CBI has not filed chargesheet even after a long time and the local investigation teams are doing just fine.

Story continues below this ad

The petitions by advocate Ajay K. Agarwal and four others seek a unified CBI probe monitored by the apex court in a time-bound frame, transfer of all the cases/petitions pending in different courts to the Supreme Court and a method devised by the Union of India so that such scams do not recur.

A bench comprising Chief Justice V.N. Khare, Justice S.B. Sinha and Justice S.H. Kapadia ordered issuance of notices. Further hearing will take place after the Centre, states and other respondents file replies.