The special CBI court in its order, while rejecting the plea of the CBI for transit remand of Vishal Deep Singh, assistant director, Enforcement Directorate (ED), Shimla, on Wednesday slammed the federal agency for several lapses.
Special CBI judge BY Phad, said, “Having thoughtful considerations to the submissions and supporting documents, I find several critical fundamental lapses in the procedural compliance and fairness of the investigation and arrest of the accused.”
The court after referring to several discrepancies noted, “Above ‘substantial procedural lapses and inconsistencies in the prosecution’s actions make the arrest of the accused illegal.” With this, the court ordered release of Singh on bail.
A team of CBI officials from Chandigarh had arrested Singh from Mumbai on Tuesday night, claiming that Singh had demanded bribe to not arrest Rajnish Bansal, chairman of Himalayan Group of professional institutions, who was under probe in connection with a scholarship scam.
After the arrest, CBI approached the special court for transit remand so that he could be taken to Chandigarh and produced before the special court there.
Singh’s lawyers Mudit Jain, Rahul Agarwal and Jasmin Purani moved a plea for the rejection of the application filed by CBI and said, “His arrest was a result of false allegations by individuals he was investigating for corruption. He claims to have filed a prior complaint against the complainant and certain CBI officials, accusing them of coercion and misconduct.”
While rejecting the plea, the court said, “It is to be noted that the FIR does not bear the name of the present accused as an accused, though the complaint annexed with it contains his name. No explanation from prosecution for such a serious lapse about the non-inclusion of the name of the accused in the printed FIR.”
Further the court said, as per the law, it is mandatory for everyone investigating agency officers to maintain a case diary. “The assistant investigation officer has arrested the accused but has not maintained the supplementary case diary and produced it before the Court. This is a serious lapse.”
