New Delhi: Supreme Court on Monday cleared that all cases arising out of the probe into Madhya Pradesh’s Vyapam scam will be taken over by CBI and directed the agency to appoint public prosecutors within three weeks to conduct the trial.
“Otherwise, we will pass a judicial order on appointment of public prosecutors,” a bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu said, while accepting the request of Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar to grant the agency three weeks to appoint public prosecutors.
The bench, which also included justices Kurian Joseph and Amitava Roy, said all Vyapam cases which have now risen from 185 to 212 will be looked after by the CBI, irrespective of the fact that in 78 of them the state’s SIT/STF has filed charge sheets.
The issue of shortfall of CBI sleuths to take over the investigation was also raised like in the previous hearing but the bench told Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that “you do it at the earliest as in the last 10 days nothing has happened”.
The Attorney General (AG) also sought three weeks to come back with a clear cut proposal on filling the vacancies of investigators in CBI, which requires a mandatory training of at least two years.
“You need trained investigators. It takes two years to train them and I don’t have a pool of investigators,” Rohatgi told the bench which posted the matter for further hearing on September 11.
Taking note of shortfall of CBI sleuths to probe the matter and inadequate number of public prosecutors for conducting the trial of the cases, the bench wanted to know the view of senior advocate K T S Tulsi who said the probe agency should consider one FIR as lead case to unearth the larger conspiracy to file a consolidated charge sheet instead of separate charge sheets.