The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court, on Thursday, asked the UP government to explain the delay in allowing the CBI to prosecute officials accused in the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam.
The court summoned the principal health secretary, Sanjay Agarwal, to explain the delay and directed him to submit the government’s stand on granting permission for prosecution by August 29.
The court also pulled up the CBI for verbally informing it about the investigations and asked the agency to file a written affidavit on the progress of probe in different NRHM related cases, including the murders of three medical officials, within 48 hours.
The division bench of Justice Imtiaj Murtaza and Justice Ashwani Kumar Singh further directed the CBI to wrap up the investigations within 20 days.
Earlier, the CBI informed the court that it had sent a request letter to the Uttar Pradesh government on May 23 seeking prosecution of 22 doc relent.
It may be recalled that the Allahabad high court which tors and IAS officer Pradeep Shukla in the scam but permission for the same had not yet been granted.
According to sources, the court seems to have taken a stern view of the inordinate delay in wrapping up the investigations by the CBI and though the lawyers appearing on behalf of the CBI sought a month’s time for submitting the status report, the court did not relent.
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Mamata favours all-party meet to end logjam
Age Correspondent
New Delhi, Aug. 23
Trinamul Congress chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee held deliberations with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and finance minister P. Chidambaram to press for a financial package for her state. The TMC camp claimed that Ms Banerjee’s meetings were “good”, while West Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra will meet Mr Chidambaram soon to discuss the issues affecting the state in detail.
Later speaking to reporters, Ms Banerjee, while reacting on the stand-off in Parliament, said that she favoured an all-party meeting to end the deadlock. “Meeting of all political parties is very much needed to resolve the issue. On what format the Opposition wants discussion must be discussed with them, while taking them into confidence,” Ms Banerjee said.