SC trashes HC ruling, revives Hinduja trial in Bofors case

Sodhi had quashed the chargesheet filed by the CBI against the Hindujas on the basis of a rather controversial interpretation of the Supreme Court judgment in the Jain hawala case, which is otherwise known as the Vineet Narain judgement.

That was the third successive political case in which Sodhi gave relief to the accused. In the first case relating to Sukh Ram, the SC had reversed Sodhi’s order and the trial court this month convicted the accused. In the first case relating to Sukh Ram, the SC had reversed Sodhi’s order and the trial court this month convicted the accused.

In the second case that’s known as the JMM bribery scam, Sodhi overturned the conviction of P V Narasimha Rao and Buta Singh.

In the Bofors case, Sodhi ruled the Vineet Narain judgment meant the CBI would have to take the permission of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) every time it proposes to file any chargesheet.

And since the CBI didn’t do this before filing the chargesheet against the Hindujas, he quashed the entire proceedings against them.

Admitting an appeal filed by the CBI against Sodhi’s verdict, the bench, which included Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice Arijit Passayat, said ‘‘we are staying the operation of the high court judgement and all proceedings in the matter will go on.’’

Hindujas’ counsel Kapil Sibal requested the court that while the judgment could be stayed, the proceedings before the trial court should not go on as it would cause prejudice to the accused.

The bench said ‘‘we are convinced that this judgement is completely unsustainable. The Vineet Narain judgement was not meant for this.’’

When Sibal said the case was fixed before the trial court for framing of charges and submitted that the trial court should not frame charges, the bench said ‘‘let the charges be framed. If the judgement is not stayed and proceedings are not allowed to go on, then no prosecution will succeed in this country.’’

The court directed the Hinduja brothers to file their replies to the CBI’s special leave petition (SLP) before July 29, when the matter will be heard again.

Challenging the quashing of the chargesheet against the Hindujas, the CBI had said that in the matter of filing a chargesheet, neither the CVC, nor any ‘‘person or authority has the right to interfere’’.

‘‘The High Court overlooked the basic scheme of the law in force where once an investigation has begun, it is incumbent upon the investigating agency to file a report in the court. In filing this report, no person or authority has the right to interfere in the working of the agency,’’ the CBI said in its SLP.

Far from putting any fetters on the CBI, the Vineet Narain judgment emphasised the need, the CBI said, for independence of the investigating agency and held that in an individual case no person or authority had the right to curtail its power of investigation which must culminate in the filing of a report before the appropriate court.

The agency said if the order of the High Court was not set aside, it would confer the following powers on the Commission:

• To interfere in individual cases (and logically, at every stage of investigation).

• To impede an investigation (If at the last stage, the CVC can direct alteration of a final report, then surely at an earlier stage, logically, it should have the power to direct suspension or discontinuance of an investigation).

• The power to sanction the filing of a chargesheet, failing which the court cannot take cognizance which is the ground on which the present proceedings had been quashed.