The Jharkhand High Court on Wednesday pulled up the CBI for slow progress in investigating the Rajya Sabha horse-trading case of 2012 and sought personal appearance of the investigating officer in the Vikas Pandey abduction.
An arrest warrant has been issued against JMM MlA Sita Soren and her three bodyguards, but the police have failed to trace them.
“The court has summoned the investigating officer on April 2. All accused are absconding, according to police records,” said Rajeev Kumar, advocate appearing on behalf of Durga Oraon, the petitioner.
“A Division Bench of Chief Justice Prakash Tatia and Justice Jaya Roy also expressed dissatisfaction over the slow progress after CBI submitted its status report related to the horse-trading case of 2012,” said the advocate.
Oraon’s lawyer alleged the police were favouring the MlA as, despite directives by the Ranchi SSP, they had failed to make arrests. “It cannot be believed that three policemen are traceless along with the MlA and the district police chief has no information regarding them,” said Kumar.
The petitioner also demanded that call details of the SSP should be checked to find out what the latter was doing after Pandey was abducted.
According to the CBI, investigations are almost complete and will meet the given time frame. “We said scrutiny is still being done at the CBI headquarters, after which we will proceed and get sanction for arresting the accused,” said CBI advocate Mokhtar Khan.
CBI was earlier given one month’s time twice — first on January 21 and then February 19 — for submitting the status report but it has failed to satisfy the court. The high court had made serious comments on the agency not obtaining an arrest warrant even after four and a half days of filing of the application in court and wanted to know the reason.
A public interest litigation (PIl) was filed on January 3 by activist Durga Oraon in the Jharkhand High Court, demanding CBI to expedite the horse-trading case. He had also demanded security for witnesses.