Pre-meditated probe: Delhi court orders action against CBI officer who investigated excise policy case

A Delhi court on Friday ordered departmental proceedings against the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officer who investigated the Delhi excise policy case in which all 23 accused, including former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, were discharged today. .Special Judge (PC Act) Jitendra Singh of the Rouse Avenue Court ordered the inquiry against the investigating officer (IO) for making public servant Kuldeep Singh the accused number one in the case. Singh was the Deputy Commissioner of Excise."I am recommending a departmental inquiry with respect to framing A1 [Singh] as an accused. There is no material at all. I am repeating, there is no material at all, and you have framed him as accused number 1," Judge Singh said in Court. In a detailed order, the judge said that the IO's probe was “pre-meditated and choreographed” and that the allegations against the public servant were not an objective of an impartial investigation but were framed to fit a preconceived narrative.The Court also expressed grave concern over the investigating officer’s decision to retain individuals in the column of “suspects” while simultaneously citing them as prosecution witnesses in the charge sheet. In particular, it referred to Arva Gopi Krishna, the then Excise Commissioner, and Anand Kumar Tewari, the then Deputy Commissioner, who were listed as suspects, with Krishna also cited as prosecution witness-74."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 Court observed. It stressed that such "dual positioning unmistakably reveals that the investigating officer was, from the outset, 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"..Further, the Court said that the CBI officer's approach revealed anticipatory manipulation, designed to protect the investigator rather than to assist the Court in its pursuit of truth. It added that the department proceedings were being ordered against the erring CBI officer to fix accountability and preserve the credibility of the investigative machinery. "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 option n these circumstances, the course consistent with 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 for framing A-1 as an accused in the absence of any material against him, so that accountability is fixed and the institutional credibility of the investigative machinery is preserved," the Court added. .Additional Solicitor General and Special Public Prosecutor DP Singh, Senior Public Prosecutor Satish Kumar Garg and counsels Manu Mishra, Garima Saxena, Shreya Dutt Imaan Khera and Dig Vijay Singh appeared for the CBI. Arvind Kejriwal appeared through Senior Advocate N Hariharan with Mudit Jain, Mohd Irshad, Mohd Asgar Ali, Rudraksh Nakra, Ayush Goswami, Lakshya Aggarwal, Harjas Singh Gujral, Samta Sharma, Sona Singh, Vasudhra Raj Tyagi, Aman Akhtar, Arjun Singh Mandla, Vasundhara N, Punya Rekha Angora, Amaan Shreyas, Sana Singh and Mahima Malhotra.Manish Sisodia was represented by Senior Advocate Rebecca John along advocates with Vivek Jain, Sadiq Noor, Rohit Nair and Mohd Irshad.Durgesh Pathak was represented by Senior Advocate Mohit Mathur with Karan Sharma, Rajan Jain, Mohit Siwach, Harsh Gautam and Vignesh. Kuldeep Singh was represented by advocates SS Rana Naveen Kumar and Abhishek Mahal while Narender Singh appeared through Pardeep Rana, Gagan Bhatnagar, Tushar Rohmetra and Vibhor Choudhary. Vijay Nair was represented by Senior Advocate Madhav Khurana along with advocates Stuti Gujral Vrinda Bhandari Piyush Kumar Nishant Sharma Syed Miran Ahmad Vidushi Sabharwal Arjun V Harihar and Vipin KumarAbhishek Boinpally was represented by advocates Sumer Singh Boparai Surya Pratap Singh Abhilash Kumar Pathak Shubham Raj Anand and Sirhaan Seth. Arun Ramchandra Pillai appeared through Senior Advocate Pramod Kumar Dubey with advocates Nitesh Rana, Joy Banerjee, Amrita Vatsa, Satyam Sharma, Aditi Singh, Aditya Narayan, Raksha Tripathi, Suyash Pandey, RB Siddhartha, Muskan Sharma, Yash Saxena, Samarth Panwar and Khushi Arora.Mootha Gautam was represented by Senior Advocate Maneka Guruswamy with advocates Shivendra Dwivedi, Onmichon Ramrar, Lavkesh Bhambani, Bhumika Yadav and Anmol Gupta.Sameer Mahandru was represented by advocates Dhruv Gupta, Anubhav Garg, and Yash Raj Mehran. Amandeep Singh Dhall was represented by Adit S Pujari, Shaswat Sarin, Shaurya Mittal and Dhanya Visweswaran, while Arjun Pandey appeared through Senior Advocate Shadan Farasat with Shivendra Dwivedi, Varisha Sharma and Onmichon Ramrar.Butchibabu Gorantla was represented by advocates Arshdeep Singh Khurana, Abhishek Singh, Talib Mustafa, Anmol Aggarwal, Ketan Kumar Roy, Vishvendra Tomar, Harsh Srivastava, Dikksha Ramnani and Chetan Nagpal. Rajesh Joshi, Damodar Prasad Sharma, Prince Kumar and Arvind Kumar Singh were represented by Rajat Bhardwaj and Dushyant Chaudhary.Chanpreet Singh Rayat was represented by Senior Advocate Ramesh Gupta with Shailendra Singh, Baani Khanna, Robin Singh, Kapil Balwani and Komal Thakkar.K Kavitha was represented by P Mohit Rao and Eugene S Philomene.Amit Arora was represented by Prabhav Ralli, Dev Vrat Arya, Samraat Saxena and Deeya Mittal.Vinod Chauhan was represented by Senior Advocate Rebecca M John along with Gagan Minocha, Tusharika Mattoo, Pravir and Shivani Sehrawat.Ashish Mathur appeared through Harsh Bora, Sahil Ghai and Aekansh Agarwal, while P Sarath Chandra Reddy was represented by Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa with Mayank Jain, Madhur Jain, Navlendu Kumar, Vivek Chandra Jaiswal, Sahil Yadav and Arpit Goel..[Read Judgement].Follow Bar and Bench channel on WhatsAppDownload the Bar and Bench Mobile app for instant access to the latest legal news.