The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the CBI appeal against the Delhi High Court's 2005 verdict discharging all the accused, including the Hinduja brothers, in the politically-sensitive Rs 64 crore Bofors pay-off case.
The apex court rejected the CBI plea seeking condonation of the 13 year delay in filing the appeal against the May 31, 2005 judgement of the High Court saying it is not convinced with the grounds furnished by the agency.
"We are not convinced with the grounds furnished by the petitioner for the inordinate delay of 4,522 days in filing the present Special Leave Petitions," said a bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi.
The apex court said the CBI can raise all grounds in the appeal against the high court verdict filed by advocate Ajay Agrawal, who has also challenged the judgement.
The top court has already admitted the petition filed by Agrawal, the BJP leader, who had contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election against the then Congress president Sonia Gandhi from Rae Bareilly.
"Furthermore, we have noticed that in the criminal appeal filed against the very same order by the complainant, the petitioner herein i.e. Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is a party and would be heard in the said appeal. We, therefore, are not inclined to entertain the present Special Leave Petitions," the bench, also comprising Justices K M Joseph and Hemant Gupta, said.
The CBI had filed the appeal on February 2 this year.
Attorney General K K Venugopal asked the top court to make it clear in its order that dismissal of CBI appeal would not preclude the probe agency from carrying out investigation in the case.
The apex court, however, did not mention anything in its order on this issue.
The High Court in its 2005 judgement had quashed all charges against the three Hinduja brothers — S P Hinduja, G P Hinduja and P P Hinduja — and others under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
In December 2016, during the hearing of Agrawal's appeal, the apex court had asked the CBI why it had not filed the appeal within the mandatory time limit of 90 days. The agency had said that it did not get the nod from the previous UPA Government.
After the NDA Government came to power, there were speculations that the CBI would take a call to either respond as respondent in Agrawal's petition or prefer a separate appeal.
After lot of deliberation, the CBI this year got the nod from the NDA Government to file an appeal in the apex court.