The CBI on the Vyapam scam trail approached the Supreme Court on Thursday to direct the Special Task Force of Madhya Pradesh police to file its final investigation report to prevent the release of the scam accused on bail.
The bench headed by Chief Justice Hl Dattu decided to hear the application on Monday after the matter was mentioned before the Court by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Maninder Singh. The agency in its application said that it was still in the process of physically taking over the voluminous case records and it will take about six weeks.
The application said, “It is the submission of CBI that STF would be directed to take all appropriate and necessary steps in all such cases (of Vyapam scam) to file Police reports etc, before they are physically taken over by CBI in coming weeks.”
With the case investigation handed over to CBI, the STF had completely stopped taking any further steps either to file chargesheet or seek custody of the accused before the 20 special courts hearing Vyapam scam cases. The accused are entitled to bail under the Criminal Procedure Code if no final report is filed by the police within 90 days. As the CBI is yet to come to grips with the matter, it is faced with more than 30-40 bail applications on an average every day.
Having regard to this situation, the STF wrote to CBI on July 14 seeking clarification. The agency in turn approached the apex court. Over 105 cases under probe stood transferred to the CBI besides 80 cases where trial has begun. There are more than 2,000 persons accused of which about 350 persons are still in police or judicial custody.