The state government in an affidavit, said that the joint director, CBI, South Zone, Chennai, had informed the state government, through a letter dated January 29, 2007, that the Bureau had already registered five preliminary inquiries to probe into land acquisitions for the Outer Ring Road and related projects. It had stated that most officers were busy in these inquiries and thus it was not possible for it to take up this matter for inquiry because of resource constraints.
The CBI had suggested that the government could get a preliminary inquiry done through its agencies including the CID and if commission of cognisable offence against officials was made out, then the case could be referred to the CBI for investigation. Following this, the home department had referred the matter to the additional director-general of CID for necessary action and the CID had sought relevant records from the Youth Advancement Training and Culture Department.
At this juncture, the IMG Academics Bharata moved a petition before the High Court challenging the action of the state government in cancelling the MoU between them. During the course of hearing, the High Court had expressed its anguish over the land allotment and observed that the matter ought to have been entrusted to the CBI, since the value of the property involved in the transaction ran into thousands of crores of rupees.
The government then once again wrote to the CBI in August 2007 and the joint director expressed the Bureau’s inability to take up the case. The state, meanwhile, said it would not be able to conduct a preliminary inquiry because the department was not in a position to hand over the records as the same were in the court’s custody.