BENGALURU: The Karnataka chief minister’s office (
CMO) on Tuesday claimed the decision to withdraw the sanction allowing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe illegal ore exports from six ports came in the backdrop of the
CBI closing the cases.
“It is the CBI which has been closing the mining cases, and the Karnataka government has taken steps to ensure continuation of the investigation,” a CMO statement issued as a response to a TOI article, read.
It added that the CBI, after three-and-a-half years, conveyed to the government in November 2017 that they have not been able to convert the cases pertaining to two ports of Karnataka—Karwar and Mangaluru—into regular cases.
The statement claimed the CBI from Goa has conveyed to the government that it wanted to close two preliminary inquiries registered in Goa pertaining to
Panaji and Mormugao ports, stating that on completion of the probe, no prima facie case is made out to justify registration of a regular case.
The CMO claimed that the CBI’s Chennai branch also said they have not started probe into illegal export cases because the Centre has not conveyed its consent under Section 5 of the Delhi Police Establishment Act, 1946.
“Since the cases were closed by the CBI Goa branch and cases pertaining to Karnataka were not converted to regular cases by CBI, Bengaluru, and investigation of cases pertaining to port in
Tamil Nadu was not initiated, the government decided to entrust the cases to a Special Investigation Team (SIT).Therefore, these cases were withdrawn from CBI,” the statement read.
However, the proceedings of the government, following which the order withdrawing the cases was issued, reads: “The commerce and industries department (MSME and mines), in its unofficial memorandum dated March 12, 2018, has requested to withdraw the order.”
TOI had based its April 24 story titled ‘CBI told to drop probe into illegal ore exports in six ports’ on this document and the government order.
