The Supreme Court on Monday termed the allegation of the West Bengal police obstructing the CBI in its probe into the multi-crore Saradha scam as a “sorry state of affairs” and directed that the probe agency officials should not be summoned for questioning by the State police’s Special Investigation Team.
The top court also observed that due to such obstructions, the prosecution of those accused in the scam was getting delayed.
The issue came up when the counsel for CBI made certain allegations which were countered by their counterparts representing the State government.
“They (CBI and SIT) are obstructing each other. This is a sorry state of affairs. We are not happy with it. This is not the way things should go on. Whoever is the culprit needs to be booked. It should not be the case that investigating agencies are siding with the accused,” a Bench of Justices Arun Mishra and S.A. Abdul Nazeer said.
The Bench said the SIT of the State police cannot summon CBI officials for questioning, as the apex court had in 2014 asked the Central probe agency to investigate the alleged scam.
Justice Mishra said that when he was the Calcutta High Court Chief Justice, this case had come up before it for the first time but he had refused to hear it.
