The Supreme Court on Friday asked the special judge hearing the coal scam case to refrain from making any personal remarks on the conduct of CBI officials and limit his order to the legal issues arising out of the investigation.
The need for passing the order was felt after CBI Director Ranjit Sinha’s counsel brought two orders of Special Judge Bharat Parashar where the trial judge dumped the CBI closure report with remarks that the investigating officer probing the case lacked training to investigate the high-profile matter and required to be sent for a refresher training course.
The remark was directed against an officer of the level of Superintendent of Police who since requested Sinha to be removed from the case owing to such humiliation he had to suffer despite being an ace investigator associated with cracking the PF scam, Nithari killing and such other high profile cases.
Senior advocate Vikas Singh who represented Director CBI said that the trial judge lost sight of the fact that the decision to file a closure report was unanimous and not one where the Director had overruled his subordinates. The case involved one Vikash Metals and Power ltd and its officials were accused of making false claims related to land allocation to get undue advantage in the coal block allocation.
It was argued that such orders affected the morale of the officers, in particular SP Nirbhay Kumar and Inspector Rajbir Singh against whom the trial court order was directed.
The bench headed by Justice Madan B lokur monitoring the coal scam investigation directed the trial judge to henceforth focus only on legal questions and refrain from any personal remarks against the CBI officials who were appointed on Court orders. The bench, also comprising Justices Kurian Joseph and AK Sikri asked the two officials to continue with the probe.
In continuing with the coal scam probe, the apex court directed both CBI and Enforcement Directorate to furnish report on progress of investigation before December 8, the next date of hearing.