Gujarat HC gives free hand to official probing diesel scam

The scam relates to supply of large quantities of subsidised diesel, meant for use as a raw material, to fictitious companies which in turn diverted it into the open market.

The direction was issued yesterday by a division bench comprising Justice B.C. Patel and Justice P.B. Majmudar following the filing of a public interest litigation (PIL) by one Saurin R. Shah, alleging that the CBI had arrested only two persons so far though it had found involvement of many more.

The petitioner alleged that the CBI, for “extraneous reasons”, had not arrested all the people who had been found to be involved in the racket. Seeking the court’s direction to arrest them, the petitioner also sought a direction to the CBI to produce a list of such persons.

During the hearing, counsel for the petitioner Bharat Nayak sought to know why officers of the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) had not been arrested.CBI counsel M.R. Shah submitted that the investigating officer had not received sanction for arrests from the CBI joint director, Mumbai.

He said that although the CBI had issued notices to many people to appear before the investigating officer, they did not respond. He submitted that of the 105 people who were issued notices, only 43 reported to the CBI.

Nayak said: “It appears that the hands of the investigating agency are tied by some forces.” He said there was sufficient material to arrest those found involved in the scam. He submitted that if such persons were not arrested promptly, there was the possibility of destruction of evidence.

CBI counsel told the court that the Sales Tax department was not providing the necessary information sought by the CBI. At this, the court directed the department to give the necessary assistance to the investigating agency. The CBI counsel said even IOCL was not providing the information sought by the CBI.

The court said it failed to understand why the culprits were not being dealt with in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPc). The scam had dealt a heavy blow to the state exchequer, it said.

Referring to CBI reports, the court observed that an estimated Rs 150 crore was involved in the scam. The court also noted that the provisions of the CrPc empowered the investigating officer to search the premises if there was reasonable ground to do so. Also, it noted, the investigating officer could arrest a person if a cognisable offence appeared to had taken place.

Taking serious view of the fact that some of the people involved were not cooperating with the CBI, the court observed that the investigating officer could arrest such persons using his discretion. The discretion of the investigating agency could not be controlled by any other agency, the court observed. It directed the investigating officer to report to the court in two weeks.