The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) on Monday filed its preliminary enquiry report in a sealed cover before the Supreme Court against benched CBI director Alok Kumar Verma in view of the allegations of corruption levelled against him by his deputy Rakesh Asthana.
Following allegations of corruption, Verma and Asthana were divested of their supervisory authority in the CBI and sent on leave.
Acting CBI director M Nageswara Rao too filed in a sealed cover the decisions taken by him from October 23-26 with regard to the transfer of investigations and change of investigators of the agency.
A Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul took both the reports on record and fixed November 16 as the next date for hearing in the matter.
Sources privy to the CVC enquiry said the report has flagged certain questions with regard to the probe against Verma for which a separate and further enquiry is required. It implies there is no clean chit to Verma and the CVC preliminary report has left it for the apex court to decide further course of action, the sources added.
The CVC and Rao placed three copies of their reports in compliance with the October 26 order of the SC.
“Report of the Central Vigilance Commission with regard to the preliminary enquiry held in respect of the petitioner — Alok Kumar Verma — in sealed cover has been submitted in court by Tushar Mehta, Solicitor General,” the Bench said.
Likewise, the apex court noted in its order that the report of the orders passed by the acting director was filed in sealed cover, in terms of the earlier order of the court dated October 26, 2018, by Additional Solicitor General PS Narasimha.
“Both the aforesaid reports are taken on record. All the matters will be considered on Friday next i.e. November 16, 2018,” the Bench said.
Mehta, appearing for the CVC, told the court that former SC judge A K Patnaik has supervised the CVC enquiry as directed by the apex court and the probe was completed on November 10. To this, the CJI observed that the Registry was open on Sunday for one hour but neither the reports were filed nor any intimation was given to the Registrar regarding their filing.
“On Sunday we kept the registry opened for one hour but neither the reports were filed nor any intimation was given. How long will the Registrars wait?,” the CJI said. The Solicitor General later tendered an apology and said though he was not explaining the circumstances, there was delay on their part in submitting the report.
In its order on October 26, the SC had set a deadline of two weeks for the ongoing CVC probe against Verma. The CVC probed the August 24 note/letter of Asthana to the Cabinet Secretary wherein he had alleged corruption by Verma and meddling in high profile cases in disregard of the CBI manual. The Cabinet Secretary had referred Asthana’s complaint to the CVC for probe.
