The Supreme Court on Monday put the final nail in the coffin in the 1999 Kargil coffin purchase scam after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) informed that not a single person accused in the scam was found guilty by the trial court.
The bench of Justices TS Thakur and V Gopala Gowda laid the matter to final rest as it disposed of two Public Interest litigations (PIls) dealing with irregularities in the probe relating to purchase of aluminum caskets, hand held thermal imagers, and snow suits.
The CBI, in its latest status report to the apex court, had made it abundantly clear that nothing remained in the case as all persons have been acquitted in the case.
The last of the persons, a US citizen Victor Baiza accused in the coffin purchase deal recently got discharged.
The scam had a huge political setback to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government that faced the ignominy of irregularities in Defence purchases fresh from the victory in the Kargil war.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) made a scathing report on irregularities in purchases, causing the PIl to be filed in Supreme Court by one KG Dhananjay Chauhan seeking a comprehensive CBI probe.