The West Bengal Government and the party in power Trinamool Congress on Monday approached Supreme Court for a court-monitoring of the Saradha chit fund scam being investigated by the CBI as it alleged that the Centre was using the Investigating Agency as a tool to target prominent leaders of the party and destabilise the Mamata Banerjee Government.
The two separate applications are likely to be heard by the court this week after it was mentioned before a Bench headed by Justice TS Thakur. Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Vivek Tankha appeared for West Bengal and TMC respectively before the Bench seeking an urgent hearing of the application on Thursday. The applications were filed in a disposed matter where court on May 9, 2014 directed CBI to probe all chit fund scams, figuring over 500, in Odisha and West Bengal. The Bench assured the counsels that the matter will be heard this week.
The State in its application even sought curbs on media reporting of the case as it accused the CBI of deliberate leaks to the media and a media trial based on unfounded allegations. On the role of agency, the State Government pointed out that the agency was lax in completing investigation into the Saradha chit fund cases which aided the accused to be enlarged on bail. The State demanded a direction for CBI to expedite investigation of Saradha case and equally focus on non-Saradha cases.
The other application by TMC said, “It appears that CBI is now merely acting as an instrument in the hands of the ruling Government at the Centre and seems to be conducting the investigation to strategically target prominent leaders of one political party (being TMC) so as to destabilise the State Government and try to leave the party bereft of leaders at the helm; in line with the political agenda of the ruling Government at Centre.”
Blaming CBI of conducting “unfair and partial” probe, it pointed out that members of BJP and Central Government have prior information of steps to be taken by CBI. It pointed out several instances to highlight this fact.