The Government’s formal notification is still on its way but a series of meetings, held by the top brass of the Central Bureau of Investigation and senior members of the UPA government, has suggested that the agency will take an ‘‘aggressive line’’ in the Tehelka inquiry. Sources said the CBI is veering towards registering a Regular Case (RC) in the Tehelka affair instead of going in for a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) as it did in the video expose implicating former Minister Dilip Singh Judeo last year, first reported by The Indian Express. What this means is that after receving the notification—and truckloads of documents from the Justice Phukan Commission wound up recently—the CBI will file an FIR in a Delhi court and then proceed with the probe. Since the CBI can only act against public servants who featured in the Tehelka tapes, the naming of former BJP president, Bangaru Laxman, in a criminal case seems imminent. The subject came up for discussion at a Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Following that, more than one meeting on the subject has been held between CBI Director U S Mishra and Minister of State for Personnel, Suresh Pachauri. At one meeting Union Law Minister H R Bharadwaj was also present. Following these consultations, the draft notification has been sent to the Ministry of Law for its approval. Significantly, the CBI top brass are known to have expressed reservations about probing specific defence deals bandied about in the Tehelka tapes and have indicated to the Government that they would prefer to restrict their inquiry to allegations and evidence of payoffs as seen on the video tape. Incidentally, in the Judeo case, the agency had gone for a PE. However, it filed an FIR in the case registered against former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi. The CBI had come under attack in Parliament for this ‘‘varied’’ approach when the NDA Government was in power and the chargesheet in the Judeo case is yet to be filed.
