Despite the CBI and Centre’s strong resistance to any order from the Supreme Court for probing the alleged role of home minister P. Chidambaram in the 2G scam case, his problems seem to be not entirely over as the top court took note of its two crucial orders for investigating Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and his deputy Amit Shah despite filing of the chargesheets.
The top court orders handing over the probe on Zakia Jaffri’s petition to the SIT against Mr Modi in the Gulberg case even when the chargeseet had been filed and the trial was on and the CBI probe against Shah in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case after filing of the chargesheet were placed on record by petitioner Prashant Bhushan.
Mr Bhushan said CBI counsel K.K. Venugopal and the Centre’s lawyer P.P. Rao on Tuesday had said that the Supreme Court could not order investigation once the chargesheet has been filed in the trial court, but the top court’s two orders on the plea of Ms Zakia and Sohrabuddin’s brother Rubabbuddin clearly contradicted their stand.
The top court took substantial time to examine the two verdicts after Mr Bhushan cited form them that the investigation was ordered against Mr Modi and Shah after some new material facts had been brought on record.
There was identical situation in the issue related to Mr Chidambaram after the finance ministry’s latest note to the PM was placed on record by Mr Subramanian Swamy, Mr Bhushan said, adding, “Since there was similarity of circumstances in the 2G case, there was no bar on the Supreme Court to order further investigation against the Union home minister.”
“The CBI stand is less than honest. When Swamy wants probe against Chidambaram, they (the CBI) suddenly take the stand that the probe in 2G case is over,” Mr Bhushan argued. He also raised the issue of “controlling the cadre” of all IPS officers posted with the CBI by the home ministry though the agency is practically falling under the jurisdiction of department of personnel and training.
“As for all purposes the cadre of all the IPS officers is controlled by the Union home ministry, which writes their ACR when their tenure in CBI is over, thus no IPS officer posted with the agency would dare to probe against the home minister,” Mr Bhushan said citing it as another reason for strong resistance from the CBI to probe against him.