Two months into the Vyapam scam probe, the Supreme Court on Friday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to submit its first status report on investigation by October 9. With the order, the Supreme Court made it clear that it would be monitoring the Vyapam scam.
A bulk of over 212 cases of Vyapam scam are under CBI probe after they stood transferred from the Madhya Pradesh Special Task Force on order passed by the apex court on July 9. But facing a severe staff crunch, the CBI informed the apex court that 72 cases still remained to be taken up.
The Bench of chief Justice Hl Dattu, Justices C Nagappan and Amitava Roy directed CBI to take over all cases irrespective of whether they were at charge sheet stage or beyond. It asked the Madhya Pradesh STF to extend full cooperation to the CBI after it learnt that the agency required time to appoint its own prosecutors. With the matter pending before 24 special courts, there is requirement of 48 CBI prosecutors. Till date, only 19 have been selected, the agency informed.
Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, who appeared for CBI, informed the Court that in cases where charge sheet was already filed, it may be difficult to re-investigate or conduct further probe unless ordered by the apex court. The agency already has an outstanding vacancy figure of 700 and this was a major block to complete the probe.
The Bench turned to Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi on this issue as on previous occasion, Rohatgi had promised to settle the matter with the Centre and ensure for the meantime a batch of officers from Madhya Pradesh was released forthwith to fill the gap.
Finding that the promise remained unfulfilled, the Court said, “Till now we did not insist on status report as the CBI was still to take over the cases. But if you (CBI) bring one excuse after another, we may seek progress reports every 15 days.” A-G informed the Court that some positive steps had been taken and within a month some 1000 additional posts may be sanctioned in CBI cadre. Besides, the Centre is contemplating to allow even sub-inspectors to investigate.