The State government on Thursday told the High Court of Karnataka that investigations carried out by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the alleged CD scandal involving former Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi is not vitiated merely because of absence of head of SIT due to medical reason.
Also, both the government and the SIT, in their separate statements, pointed out to the court that the two First Information Reports (FIRs) – one based on Mr. Jarkiholi’s complaint and another on the woman’s complaint – were entrusted to the individual Investigation Officers (IOs) by the Commissioner of Police as per the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
It was contended in the statement that while entrusting the FIRs to the separate IOs, the Commissioner asked them to carry out the investigation under the supervision of the Deputy Commissioner (Central Division), who is a member of the SIT. The head of the SIT and other senior police officers in the team were asked to carry out overall supervision of the investigation of all the cases related to the CD scandal, it was claimed in the statements.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice N.S. Sanjay Gowda, which took statements on record, had asked the SIT’s counsel whether IPS officer Soumendru Mukherjee, head of the SIT, was prepared to review the investigations carried out during the period he was on leave.
However, the SIT’s counsel, after speaking to Mr. Mukherjee over phone, told the Bench that the SIT head would confine to what has been said in the written statement, which he admitted that he had not supervised probe when on leave.
Following this, the Bench said that only inference that can be drawn from the response of the SIT head was that he is not willing to look into the probe conducted when he was on leave. The Bench also made it clear that it posed the question to the SIT head only in the light of the fact that he had not supervised probe when on leave and to ascertain whether any effort made to find out proper conduct of investigation in his absence.
Meanwhile, in their statements, both the government and the SIT denied having leaked details of investigation to any media while clarifying that media reports, published based on “sources”, could have been based on certain submissions made on behalf of SIT before the trial court during the hearing of bail petitions of some of the persons named as accused in these cases.
The Bench adjourned hearing till September 3 stating that it would consider all the issues raised in the petitions, including the legality of setting up of SIT.
