NEW DELHI: At a time ,when both the opposition and the ruling political fraternities make hue and cry against corruption, over 100 cases of bank-frauds and misappropriation amounting of over Rs 50,000 crore are pending to be investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation still awaiting the general consent from concerned state government in the country.
The government disclosed this in response to a Zero-Hour question, raised by BJP's Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Modi. At present, India's nine states, including Maharashtra and West Bengal, have withdrawn the general consents to the CBI for investigation into bank fraud and other cases.
Modi, quoting details from the reply, given in the Parliament, said: "All these 100 bank fraud cases pending for investigations include the cases of Punjab National Bank's case of Rs 1107 crore fraud and the Bank of Baroda's case of Rs 739 crore. These two cases have been reported just from one state Maharashtra and such bank complaints are pending as the CBI still awaits consent from state government of Maharashtra."
He said that he had urged the government of India to take necessary steps to ensure that such grave crimes are dealt with urgency and CBI investigations into cases worth Rs 50000 crore across the country be started soon without hindrances and delays in awaiting consents.
The states namely Maharashtra, West Bengal, Punjab, Rajasthan, Kerala, Mizoram, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Meghalaya have withdrawn consent to the CBI to investigate cases in the states related to bank frauds or other financial fraud cases.
The Meghalaya has become the ninth states after withdrawing its general consent to the CBI investigation recently.
Meanwhile sources from CBI said that more than 100 requests were made in the last few years for obtaining general consent for CBI which have still not been granted by the concerned states. In the last year, the Supreme Court had also expressed its serious concern upon being informed that the requests for general consent were pending in many states.
Actually, the CBI has been formed under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946 with mandatory of obtaining the consent of the state government before starting investigation into a crime or corruption case related to the states