The Andhra Pradesh High Court will monitor the Anti-Corruption Bureau’s ongoing probe into the liquor syndicate scam on a weekly basis. Acting Chief Justice P.C. Ghose on Wednesday informed the ACB’s standing counsel of the decision while hearing a batch of petitions filed in connection with the scam, along with Justice Vilas V. Afzulpurkar. The bench directed the ACB to submit a report to the court in a sealed cover on the progress of the investigation and to explain how much time it needed to complete the probe.
During the course of the hearing, Justice Ghose asked why the ACB had not filed a chargesheet in the case though the statutory period of 90 days had elapsed. The ACB had started the probe in April this year. ACB’s counsel replied that the agency had to carry out its investigations across the state and it would need some more time to complete the probe. Pointing out that the investigation could not be dragged on for months, Justice Ghose instructed the counsel to file the report within two weeks following which the court would monitor the progress of the investigation on a weekly basis.