Virbhadra Singh can’t question CBI, Delhi HC told

NEW DELHI: The CBI on Wednesday contended in the Delhi High Court that Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh should face the charge of holding disproportionate assets, instead of questioning the agency’s authority for conducting the probe and filing the chargesheet in the case.

Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhadra Singh.

R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, October 26

The CBI on Wednesday contended in the Delhi High Court that Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh should face the charge of holding disproportionate assets, instead of questioning the agency’s authority for conducting the probe and filing the chargesheet in the case.

Additional Solicitor General PS Patwalia pleaded before Justice Vipin Sanghi that there was no logic in Singh’s contention that CBI had no right to register the case without taking the consent of the state government.

The ASG argued that HP police was under the state’s home department, a portfolio held by the Chief Minister, and as such the state police could not conduct a fair investigation.

Patwalia made the point when Advocate General Shrawan Dogra said the Delhi Police Establishment Act, under which CBI was set up, had no provision for the agency to take up any case without the consent of the state concerned.

The ASG also questioned the logic behind the Advocate General defending Singh in a case of personal nature.

Earlier, Singh had pleaded that CBI had no right to register a second preliminary enquiry (PE) against him in the DA case after finding nothing against him in nearly three years of investigation under the first PE.

CBI has approached the HC seeking permission to file a chargesheet against Singh for allegedly accumulating unaccounted wealth amounting to about Rs 6 crore during the assessment period 2009-12.

Earlier, Singh’s senior counsel Kapil Sibal had questioned the legality of CBI’s DA case on several counts, contending that the agency had flouted laws to proceed against him with an “element of enthusiasm and mala fide intention”.

Sibal said CBI also could not have registered the DA case in Delhi as the alleged assets were in HP.

The agency had booked his client under Section 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act for purchase of insurance policies for Rs 6 crore using undisclosed income, not for taking bribe which fell under Section 13(1(d) of the Act, he had noted.