After getting its fingers badly burnt on the coal scam investigation, the Central Bureau of Investigation, which submitted its status report to the Supreme Court in a sealed cover Monday, requested the apex court to allow it share with the government so that it could dig out more details. Seeking permission to share portions of the probe report with ministers, law officers or its own prosecutors, the CBI said it wanted to apprise its legal officers about the status of the investigation as it expects the accused to move the courts.
The agency, which filed a status report in the case in a sealed cover, on Monday also sought lifting of court restrictions on changing the 33-member team investigating the scam, which has come to be known as Coalgate. The court will on July 10 take up the status report with the Centre’s affidavit that lists proposals towards granting more autonomy to the CBI. The SC bench headed by justice RM Lodha had on May 8 ordered CBI director to ensure complete secrecy into the Coalgate probe. Calling the CBI a “caged parrot” with many masters, the court had restrained the investigating agency from sharing probe details with ministers, law officers, CBI advocates and director of prosecution.
The order came after the agency told the court it carried out changes in the status report at the behest of then law minister Ashwani Kumar before submitting it to the SC in a sealed cover. Kumar had to quit after the revelation. The agency told the court that the probe was expanding and it required consent of various state governments to conduct further investigations. The status report has details of the four FIRs registered in the last four months, said a CBI source. One FIR was registered against a former minister of state for coal and an MP, along with five firms, in the allocation of a Jharkhand coal block. “We have a preliminary enquiry lodged to probe alleged irregularities in coal allocations by state governments in joint ventures. For this probe, we need to share some information with state government,” a CBI source said.
In its report filed in the Supreme Court before the hearing scheduled on Wednesday, the agency has said while they will abide by the court’s direction and not share any details of their investigation, they may have to in special circumstances. The CBI said it has informed the court that it may need to share information in cases where they need to seek the government's sanction for prosecution. "When we seek sanction, we have to tell them the grounds of prosecution," said an official.
This happened recently when the CBI had to tell the corporate affairs ministry why they were summoning former coal secretary HC Gupta as an accused. The ministry refused to give sanction till they had details of evidence against Gupta. "We've also told the Supreme Court that we may need to share details with our own lawyers," a senior CBI official was as saying in newspapers. The apex court, during the last hearing, had said that only the investigating officers and the CBI director should know details.
The court's remarks were after revelations that former law minister Ashwani Kumar, the attorney general and officials of the Prime Minister's Office had made changes to the report. Apart from this, the CBI has also informed the court about the developments in its investigations. The agency said it has questioned PMO officials and booked Congress MP Navin Jindal and former minister Dasari Narayan Rao for manipulating the allocation process.
Incidentally, it was only after the consent of the CBI counsel and Attorney General that the court on May 8 ordered CBI Director Ranjit Sinha not to share details with "any person or authority, including any minister of the Union Cabinet, law officers, advocate(s) of CBI, director of prosecution and officials/officers of the Central government". The CBI came under fire after Sinha told the Supreme Court in May that Ashwani Kumar, the then law minister, and other officials of the PMO and coal ministry had amended a status report on the probe into the coal block allocation case before submission.
Perturbed by the CBI changing the "heart" of the report at the instance of its "masters", the Supreme Court had remarked that the agency had become a "caged parrot". Now, two days before the apex court is set to take up for consideration the Centre's response on ensuring CBI's autonomy and the latest investigation report, the CBI brought up provisions of the Delhi Police Special Establishment Act and the CBI manual to convey that investigation details will need to be shared with government authorities.
As per the CBI, modification in the May 8 order was necessary so that the "investigation proceed efficaciously and all aspects of the matter be fairly and effectively probed." In its plea, CBI cited Sections 4, 5 and 6A of the Act to argue that probe details will need to be shared to get approval for investigation across states. It added that this is necessary to seek approval and prosecution sanction from appropriate government authorities in respect of public officials
