The court added that it is a matter of common knowledge that in case of any grievance, the CBI takes steps to seek an appropriate legal remedy before a higher forum immediately. (Representational) A CBI court in Delhi has said that several officers from the central agency have assumed themselves to be above the court, refusing to follow its orders on the “basis of their own sweet will”, and it has now asked the CBI director to explain why contempt of court should not be initiated against these officers.
Special Judge Pulastya Pramachala has issued a show-cause notice to the CBI director seeking an explanation on the matter. The court passed the order in a corruption case in which the agency had filed the chargesheet without affixing the original complaint on the basis of which the FIR was registered.
On March 31, the court had said that it needed to go through the crime file of the case to “appreciate exactly what has been done by the CBI” and asked the investigating officer (IO) to produce the same. However, the IO moved an application on April 13 seeking consideration as the order from the court asking for documents was pending consideration with the CBI higher officers.
According to the IO, the approval of the competent authority within the CBI was being taken in order to comply with the order and the process was still pending. The court said that from the contents of this application, it “appears that concerned officers of CBI have assumed to themselves an authority over this court, so as to decide whether they will comply with the directions of this court or not in the given time frame.”
“It is a different matter that in case of any grievance, any litigant including the CBI, may approach the higher court for seeking appropriate legal remedy. But even for that purpose, such litigant or CBI herein, has to act within the time frame,” the court said.
The judge then said that a reasonable period of 13 days was given to the CBI for complying with the order, but undisclosed officers of the CBI have opted to ignore the time frame, without availing appropriate legal remedy in case of any grievance.
“This approach of the officers of CBI, in my opinion, is contemptuous which shows deliberate ignorance and deliberate non-compliance of the order, on the basis of their own sweet will. No litigant including the CBI is entitled to sit over any direction given by a court of law, on any such pretext,” it said.
The court added that it is a matter of common knowledge that in case of any grievance, the CBI takes steps to seek an appropriate legal remedy before a higher forum immediately. “Therefore, it cannot be assumed that in this case the CBI was unable to take such legal remedy, in case of having any grievance against the last order. In fact, it is not so pleaded also that there was any grievance against the last order,” the court said.
The CBI director has also been asked to ascertain the identity of the officers who opted not to follow the directions of the court and send their reply to the court.
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