Cash at judge’s door: Court calls closure report half-baked,asks CBI to clarify contradictions

Singh defined the “investigation” as per Sub-section (H) of Section 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and after defining the five steps that the investigation consists of,he stated: “These functions have not been properly carried out by the CBI”.

“Keeping in view the importance of the matter,as the honour and reputation of the judiciary is at stake,this half-baked report of the CBI cannot be acted upon and the CBI is to be directed for further investigation of the matter in order to clarify the contradictions in the report as well for lack of proper investigation of the later ingredients of the offence,” the court had observed.

“The facts mentioned in the final report about the purpose of this transaction have been derived from the statements of the accused recorded by the CBI which is not legal evidence and are hit by the provisions of Section 25 of the Evidence Act. So this aspect of the case requires further investigations,” the order further stated.

The CBI’s move to file the closure report in the bribery case had met with a volley of questions with regard to the basis of the closure report — that prosecution sanction of Justice Nirmal Yadav was not granted.

The case had surfaced on August 13,2008,when a packet of Rs 15 lakh was wrongly delivered at the residence of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Kaur had complained to the police about the matter.