In an affidavit which the CBI submitted on Friday before the division bench of the Patna High Court comprising Justice S N Jha and Justice S J Mukhopadhyaya, the investigating agency said it had already completed investigation in 43 of the 45 cases.

Counsel for the CBI Rakesh Kumar informed the bench that the director has cleared the proposal to file the chargesheet against the prominent persons in the ``major conspiracy'' case RC38.

CBI Joint Director U N Biswas, who was present in the court, said that so far, the CBI has filed 33 chargesheets and 10 cases were awaiting sanction from government authorities for prosecution of the officialsinvolved in the scam. The rest were under legal and executive scrutiny. Biswas however assured the court that all the cases would be complete by May 21, when the court is slated to once again take up the hearing.

Biswas further said the case under the Disproportionate Assets Act against Laloo Prasad Yadav was now at an advanced stage. Out of the seven cases, at least three were near completion.

The court was, however, not satisfied with the submission of the Enforcement Directorate. ED Assistant Director Abhijit Chakraborty had to personally explain the reason for the delay. But the court observed that the ED was not taking much interest in the matter and the materials supplied to it had not been thoroughly examined by the officials.

The repeated queries from the bench as to what had happened to the huge amount (involved in the scam) remained unanswered. Justice Mukhopadhyaya asked whether ED officials had tried to find out how much of the money had gone abroad. Justice Jha, showing his annoyance said:``It is certain the money has been laundered. But where it has gone needs to be traced''.

At this stage, the counsel for petitioner Ravi Shankar Prasad and P K Shahi charged the Enforcement Directorate of adopting half-hearted measures. Both counsels said ED has been aware of the developments for more than two years but its officials were not keen to retrieve the money.

In the bitumen scam, the actual amount is likely to touch around Rs 1,000 crore and the CBI is all set to nab the prime accused.

In his submission, Joint Director Biswas said: ``We will arrest the accused persons whenever the investigation demands''. However, he said that probe in the bitumen scam was making steady progress.