The Supreme Court on Wednesday rapped the CBI for delay in examining vital witnesses in the multi-crore rupee National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam cases, in which former Uttar Pradesh Minister Babu Singh Kushwaha is one of the accused, and asked it to complete the job within three months.
The bench was also critical of the probe agency for not being able to examine key witnesses in the four NRHM cases so far and made it clear that the accused may be granted bail by the trial court if the CBI defaulted in examining witnesses.
“Incarceration cannot go on for forever. It is unacceptable. You (the CBI) give us the timeframe by which you would examine the witnesses otherwise we will grant them bail,” the bench observed at the outset.
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“We are inclined to direct the prosecution (the CBI) that it has three months to examine the witnesses which it considers vital for their case,” the bench said.
The bench, comprising Justices T.S. Thakur and P.C. Pant, asked the CBI to produce the key witnesses before the trial court for recording of statements and said that pendency of applications filed by some of the accused seeking alteration of charges will come in the way of trial.
The apex court, which further asked the accused including Mr. Kushwaha not to delay the trial court proceedings, also directed the CBI not to add many witnesses as “vital” in the list of persons to be examined by it.
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Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, appearing for Mr. Kushwaha, said the accused has been in jail for the last three years and eight months and astonishingly, the CBI has not examined considerable number of witnesses in any of the four cases registered against him.
The court had earlier asked the CBI to furnish details like the number of cases and accused and the current status of cases relating to the multi-crore scam in Uttar Pradesh in which the FIR was filed in 2012.
It was alleged that huge sums of money has been siphoned off by politicians, bureaucrats and doctors from the funds meant for the NRHM, a central government scheme meant to provide health care facilities to people in rural areas.
As many as five persons had died or were allegedly murdered in an attempt to cover up the large-scale irregularities in the case.
Mr. Kushwaha, a Minister during the Bahujan Samaj Party rule, was arrested on March 3, 2012 and is still in jail.
Mr. Kushwaha had moved the apex court seeking bail, which was dismissed on February 13, 2015, with the court saying the allegations against him were very “serious” and it was a “good case for dismissal”.
The NRHM scam cases are being investigated by the CBI and the trial is going on in a CBI court at Ghaziabad.