Senior IPS officer Soumendu Mukherjee on Tuesday informed the High Court of Karnataka that he had accepted the final investigation report prepared by the Investigation Officer (IO) in the CD scandal case allegedly involving the former Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi.
Mr. Mukherjee, who is the head of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), was earlier directed by the court to examine the final investigation report and take appropriate decision as probe was completed and the report finalised when he was on medical leave for about three months.
The court had said that the final probe report, prepared by the IO, should have been placed before Mr. Mukherjee as the SIT under his leadership was tasked to supervise the investigations conducted in various first information reports (FIRs) registered in connection with the scandal related to alleged sexual abuse of a woman.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum, before whom Mr. Mukherjee submitted his report accepting the probe report of the IO, gave liberty to the SIT to file an application seeking permission of the High Court to submit the final investigation report before the competent court as per the law.
The Bench passed the order after the counsel for the SIT orally sought permission from the Bench to submit the final report before the jurisdictional magistrate as the court had earlier had restrained SIT from submitting the report before the magistrate sans taking its permission.
