‘This one may collapse like Hawala case’

Apprehending that the 2G-spectrum scam involving high-profile accused could collapse like the Hawala scam case, an NGO on Wednesday requested the Supreme Court to set up a panel of experts to assist it in effective monitoring of the case. HT reports.

Apprehending that the 2G-spectrum scam involving high-profile accused could collapse like the Hawala scam case, an NGO on Wednesday requested the Supreme Court to set up a panel of experts to assist it in effective monitoring of the case.

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“If this is not done, then this case might suffer the same fate as that of other court-monitored investigations like the hawala case where all the accused were acquitted due to slipshod investigations and weak chargesheets by CBI or the recent cash-for-votes scandal where the real beneficiaries so far appear to have got away," advocate Prashant Bhushan told a bench of justice GS Singhvi and justice AK Ganguly on behalf of Centre for Public Interest Litigation.

“In order to assist the court it is imperative and essential to entrust the matter to at least two persons of eminence for monitoring the probe," Bhushan said, adding the Hawala case of 1996 involving high profile persons collapsed as there was no SIT to assist the court in proper monitoring of the CBI probe.

Senior counsel KK Venugopal, who opposed Bhushan’s arguments on behalf of the CBI, would continue his arguments on Thursday.

Bhushan said the CBI probe was “less than honest” as many high-profile persons have not been investigated.

He wondered why the CBI didn’t file DA cases against accused officials, and slammed the CBI of disobeying the court’s December 16, 2010 order to conduct a fair probe.