Court imposes Rs 5,000 cost on CBI in Abhay Chautala’s DA case

New Delhi, Aug 24 (PTI) CBI has been slapped with a costof Rs 5,000 as "deterrence" by a special court for repeatedlyseeking permission to submit additional documents in adisproportionate assets case involving INLD chief O PChautala’s son Abhay. The court, which allowed CBI’s plea to place on recordsome additional documents in the case, made it clear that theright of prosecution was "not absolute and unchecked" and saidit should resort to "due diligence" while filing charge sheet. "…this is the fourth application moved by prosecutionto file additional documents on record. This right ofprosecution is not absolute and unchecked, to the extent that,at any stage prosecution may come with similar applications.If these documents were material for just decision of thecase, why was this fact not considered earlier while movingsimilar applications. "The CBI being premier investigating agency should resortto due diligence while filing the charge sheet so that allrelevant and important documents, for just decision of thecase, are filed along with the charge sheet and plea ofinadvertence is permissible only for one or two occasions,"Special CBI Judge Sanjay Garg-I said. "To put a deterrence on CBI, cost of Rs 5,000 is imposedto be deposited in DLSA", the court said, directing the probeagency to provide copy of these documents to the accused atthe earliest. The court’s order came on CBI’s plea seeking permissionto file additional documents relied upon. Along with the plea,the agency also filed the list of documents which it will seekfrom witnesses, who are yet to be examined. The plea was opposed by Abhay who said prosecution hasbeen allowed thrice to place additional documents on recordand this was CBI’s fourth such application and induction ofthese documents at this stage would prejudice the accused. To this, the court gave liberty to the accused to seekits permission to further cross-examine any witness, alreadybeen examined, in relation to additional documents which CBIhas sought to file. CBI had lodged a case of disproportionate assets againstINLD chief and former Haryana Chief Minister O P Chautala andhis sons Ajay and Abhay on a complaint of Congress leaderShamsher Singh Surjewala in the 1999-2000 junior basic trained(JBT) teachers recruitment scam. Chautala and Ajay were sentenced to 10 years in jailearlier this year by the high court in the JBT scam. PTI SKVARC