NEW DELHI:The Supreme Court on Friday asked the CBI to inform it in three weeks about taking over the investigation of maximum number of cases out of 185 arising from Madhya Pradesh’s Vyapam scam.
“You should be in a position to tell us we (CBI) have taken up the maximum cases,” a Bench comprising Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Amitava Roy said while making it clear to Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar that three weeks time would be sufficient for taking over cases for investigations from Special Task Force (STF) and Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Madhya Pradesh.
The Bench said the CBI should be in a position to complete within six weeks the task of appointing lawyers to prosecute the cases in various special CBI courts in Madhya Pradesh.
The Solicitor General said that the Madhya Pradesh High Court has come out with a notification that CBI courts shall be located all over the state. “We have so much faith in you. You take up the cases, whether it is in Bhopal, Jabalpur, Guna or any other place and have your own counsel for prosecution,” the Bench said.
The court also asked the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) that it should be in a position to fill necessary vacancies in the CBI as it has complained that shortage of man power was coming in the way of probe and sought the assistance of Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi on the issue.
Solicitor General said there are all together 185 cases and chargesheets have been filed in 78 of them and the CBI’s priority was to take over those cases in which the investigation was on. “So far 55 cases are being examined by the STF/ SIT and out of the remaining 130 cases, chargesheets have been filed in 49 and out of 81 which are under probe, 73 are related to cheating by candidates in examinations,” he said.