The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption (DVAC) has missed the deadline for filing a chargesheet on the multi-crore gutkha scam case.
When the FIR was registered in the final week of September last year, a senior official said the chargesheet was likely to be filed by March. A chargesheet has to be filed within six months of registering an FIR.
Explaining the position of the DVAC, a monitoring officer referred to a petition filed by the agency in December before the Madras High Court, seeking access to original storage devices seized by the Income Tax department from the premises of the gutkha manufacturer. The petition was filed after the I-T department refused to provide access to the DVAC on the ground that it would provide all the materials at the time of the trial.
The officer said that the agency was waiting for the court’s decision before it comes to a conclusion on the further course of action. It “believes” that the devices, if accessed, might provide the investigators “strong materials,” which could form the basis for the chargesheet. “But, the wait cannot be indefinite. At one point of time or the other, the chargesheet has to be filed,” the officer said.
In June last year, The Hindu accessed the Income Tax report submitted to the Tamil Nadu government and exposed the scam. The report gave details of a State Minister, senior police officials and others who allegedly accepted bribe from the manufacturer for facilitating the sale of the banned product. But in the FIR, there was no mention of the Minister or two officers of the rank of Director General of Police.
