Raid at HC judge's house: SC quashes FIR against CBI sleuths

The Supreme Court today granted breather to the premier investigating agency CBI as it quashed an FIR registered against its officials for mistakenly raiding the house of a serving Orissa High Court judge, instead of a retired judge, in a case pertaining to alleged bribery.
The apex court said that the judge concerned and the chief justice of the Orissa High Court had accepted the apology of the CBI officials who were part of the raiding team.
A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said that since the unconditional apology tendered by the officials had been accepted, the prosecution initiated against them should be dropped.

The top court had on December 4 last year criticised the CBI for the manner in which it "treated" a sitting high court judge during its attempted raid at his residence in connection with a case of alleged bribery in the name of judges.
The apex court made strong observations after the CBI said the agency had apologised to the chief justice of the high court as well as the judge concerned for the "mistake" and that both accepted the apology tendered by the agency.
It had said that the only problem was the way the sitting judge was treated and added "such mistakes are not expected from an agency like the CBI".

The CBI has said that it was "inadvertent mistake" and this matter should be rested in a dignified manner as senior officials of the CBI had explained to the chief justice the circumstances under which the incident took place.

The issue had arisen after a CBI team had allegedly attempted to raid the official residence of the sitting judge in Cuttack on September 19-20 night this year.
A team of CBI officials had come looking for the house of a former judge of the high court. The sitting judge of the Orissa High Court had shifted at the former judge's residence.

The probe agency had, however, maintained that the probe team had not entered the house of the judge and the CBI's superintendent of police had also met the judge concerned and expressed regrets for the inconvenience caused to him.
The top court also observed that the CBI officials, who had gone to conduct the raid, should have seen the nameplate of the judge at his residence before going ahead with the raid.
The CBI has approached the apex court seeking transfer of the matter pending before the Orissa High Court.
The high court had issued notices to the CBI and the state police on a plea seeking a judicial probe into the incident. The high court had sought responses on the plea filed by the bar association there.