In a sharply worded order, judge Jitendra Singh held that the CBI’s case “does not disclose even the threshold of a prima facie suspicion, far less the grave suspicion mandated” by criminal jurisprudence. The court slammed the CBI for proceeding on a “predetermined trajectory” and attempting to give credence to an otherwise “fragile narrative”.
A CBI source said the agency has decided to appeal in the Delhi High Court against the judgement “immediately, since several aspects of the investigation have either been ignored or not considered adequately”.
The conspiracy alleged by the CBI is “nothing more than a speculative construct resting on conjecture and surmise, devoid of any admissible evidence”, the judge said in the judgement running into almost 600 pages.
“…the prosecution case is rendered legally infirm, unsustainable and unfit to proceed any further in law. Stated differently, this court records that the theory of an overarching conspiracy, so emphatically projected, stands completely dismantled when tested against the evidentiary record,” the order read.
Refusing to frame charges, the court held the CBI “failed to place any material which, even prima facie, suggests” that the excise policy was manipulated, altered, or engineered to confer undue benefit on any private individual or the so-called “South Group”, a label used by probe agencies for certain politicians and businesspersons.
“On the contrary, the contemporaneous record clearly establishes that the policy was the outcome of a consultative and deliberative exercise, undertaken after engagement with relevant stakeholders and in adherence to the procedure prescribed under law,” the judgement added.The judge held that “though there was no statutory or constitutional requirement mandating the obtaining of suggestions from the Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor, the file notings unmistakably reflect that such (LG’s) suggestions were nevertheless sought, examined, and incorporated. The procedural integrity of the policy-making process thus stands affirmed from the documentary record itself”.
The court chastised the CBI for launching an investigation “…on a predetermined trajectory, implicating virtually every person associated with the formulation or implementation of the policy in order to lend an illusion of depth and credibility to an otherwise fragile narrative”.
It added: “The endeavour to further connect such allegations to the Goa assembly elections, so as to project, layering, and utilisation of alleged proceeds of crime, rests more on inference and assumption than on legally sustainable material.”
The court hauled up the CBI for building its case through approver statements, saying that it “reflects an exercise of discretion that cannot be characterised as fair or reasonable”.
If left unchecked, such conduct risks converting the exceptional mechanism of pardon into an instrument for narrative construction rather than truth discovery, thereby causing serious prejudice to the accused and eroding confidence in the criminal justice process, the judge said.
The court said it will recommend a departmental inquiry against the CBI officials who made a public servant (Kuldeep Singh, who was deputy excise commissioner) the accused number one in the case.
The court censured the CBI for using the term “South Group” to label certain accused in the case. “It is equally significant that no comparab+le regional descriptor has been employed for the remaining accused persons…,” the judge ruled.
ED case still stands, say officials
Sources in the Enforcement Directorate, which is also probing the matter, said though the CBI court discharged the accused in the predicate offence, their money laundering case still stands.
“The standard of proof and evidentiary value conducted under the PMLA is on a different footing than the probe done by the CBI. Also, the legal issue of whether the PMLA is a standalone offence is pending in the Supreme Court,” one of the sources said.
