Excise scam: Court directs departmental inquiry against CBI’s IO

A city court on Friday recommended a departmental inquiry against an investigating officer (IO) of the CBI for arraying a public servant as an accused while discharging former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and 22 others in the excise-policy case.

Special Judge Jitendra Singh flagged the lapses in the investigation and said in his 598-page order, “The duty of the court is not merely to discount the tainted investigative material, but also to recommend initiation of appropriate departmental proceedings against the erring investigating officer (IO) for framing accused 1 (Kuldeep Singh) as an accused.”

Earlier, while orally pronouncing the substantive portions of the verdict, the judge said, “I am recommending a departmental inquiry...” against the IO, after noting that “there was no material at all” against Singh. The judge’s order said such an inquiry was needed, as there was no evidence against Singh, a former deputy commissioner of excise/IMFL, and that such an action was required “so that accountability is fixed and the institutional credibility of the investigative machinery is preserved”.

Expressing surprise at how, in the absence of incriminating material, public servants, including Singh, were arrayed as accused, and how the sanction for their prosecution was accorded, the judge said, “The manner in which the investigation has been conducted, far from conforming to the discipline of a fair and lawful investigation, discloses a calculated and sustained assault on the foundational tenets of the rule of law.”

He said it is “troubling” that an individual was retained in the column of suspects and, simultaneously, presented as a prosecution witness at the stage of filing the chargesheet.

“This self-contradictory stance cannot be brushed aside as a mere procedural irregularity. It betrays a conscious and calculated stratagem by which the investigating officer has sought to keep the narrative deliberately fluid, relying upon the individual’s statement to prop up the prosecution case, while at the same time, preserving the option of implicating that very person should the case, as projected, fail to withstand judicial scrutiny,” the judge said.

He said such dual positioning unmistakably revealed that the IO, from the outset, was conscious of the “inherent fragility of the allegations being advanced and apprehensive that the version placed before the court might not survive close judicial examination”.

“An IO is not expected to act with tactical cleverness or strategic flexibility, he is required to proceed with candour, neutrality and unwavering fidelity to the factual record. “An investigation must rest on a clear, consistent and principled assessment of the material collected, and not on calculated ambiguity intended to preserve future prosecutorial options,” the judge said.