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.