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PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
NEW DELHI, Nov 18: The Delhi High Court today pulled up the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for not handing over records relating to the Reliance-Enron project case to the additional solicitor general (ASG) despite his specific request.
A division bench of acting Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice K S Gupta hearing two public interest petitions against a deal with Reliance-Enron consortium on Panna-Mukta oil fields deal said, ``We are shocked at the attitude of the CBI in not making the records available to the ASG''.``In absence of the records, we appreciate the difficulty of ASG C S Vaidyanathan in helping the court,'' the bench said. The stricture against CBI came while the bench wanted a specific information from ASG whether government had done a comparative study on the financial implications of the deal before inviting tenders. Vaidyanathan said as per the policy of privatisation approved by the government in 1992 such a study was necessary.
But he was not in a position to tell the courtspecifically if it was done in the present case in the absence of records, Vaidyanathan said.Counsel for the petitioner Prashant Bhushan concluding his arguments accused certain CBI officials of ``scuttling'' the probe into the deal. The petitioner alleged that the contract was signed with ``ulterior motives'' under pressure from the then Petroleum Minister Capt Satish Sharma in 1994. The court directed CBI to immediately hand over the record to the ASG so that he may prepare the case for tomorrow's hearing.
Concluding his arguments, Bhushan requested the court to either refer the case to Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) so that it could devise a mechanism to investigate it or appoint a retired judge to supervise the probe under an independent agency as ``CBI's conduct in this case is under cloud''.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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