Contempt Plea Against Biswas Dismissed

The Patna High Court yesterday dismissed a contempt petition against the joint director of CBI (east), U N Biswas.

Biswas is heading the team probing the Rs 950-crore fodder scam. The petition, alleging that Biswas had violated the directive of the court and the Supreme Court by briefing media persons was dismissed by a division bench comprising Justice S N Jha and Justice S J Mukhopadhyay, monitoring the investigation into the multi-crore fraud.

The judges, however, observed that press briefings be made strictly according to the provisions on the CBI manual with respect to past events and not on the future course of action to avoid unnecessary controversy.

Biswas, who was present at the court during the course of hearing of the case, denied the allegation. Meanwhile, the monitoring bench of the Patna High Court (PHC) on Monday hoped that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) would keep its promise on completing the investigation pertaining to the conspiracy aspect of the Rs 950 crore fodder scam within three months.

The bench comprising justices S N Jha and S J Mukhopadhya, in its brief four page judgement said that the High Court would like to hear the parties on the points of imports and interpretations of certain portions of the apex courts verdict on January 24 and directed the concerned parties to file their affidavits with regard to the Supreme Courts order within two weeks. The judges maintained that the January 24 order of the Supreme Court was somewhat similar to proceedings pending before the High Court in the case of Vinit Narain & Others VS Union of India and Anukul Chandra Pradahan VS Union of India and hence the Bench would like to proceed in the case in similar manner and on the similar lines.

The bench made it very clear that there was controversy between the parties regarding the import and interpretations of the Supreme Courts verdict and we would like to hear the parties on these points on the next date of hearing.

Considering the interlocutory application filed on behalf of the Income Tax department, the bench asked the I-T commissioner, Calcutta (Additional branch) to issue notices returnable within two weeks.

The order was passed by the judges after going through the petitions of the IT, seeking clarification from the court regarding its earlier order to reopen a few cases of the assesses involved in the fodder scam.

The court also directed the CBI and IT to file their progress report to the court by February 20.