SC nixes CBI plea for pardon to Abhishek Verma in forgery case

Supreme Court has dismissed a CBI plea for grant of pardon to controversial arms dealer Abhishek Verma in a case in which he is facing charges along with a senior Enforcement Directorate officer of having committed forgery to frame a businessman.
A bench headed by Justice BS Chauhan dismissed the CBI plea and upheld a Delhi High Court order quashing the trial court's direction granting pardon to Verma in the 1998 case.
"The manner in which the application has been dealt with as the Respondent No.2 (Verma) and the present appellant (CBI) had been playing hide and seek with the court and in spite of the fact that the court had asked the agency to disclose the criminal cases pending against him, no information was furnished," SC said while passing its orders.

The apex court in a separate judgement ordered withdrawal of the disciplinary action against Indian Revenue Service officer AK Aggarwal, who was suspended 13 years back.
Verma, who was arrested in November 1999, is said to have disclosed to CBI that he played an active role in committing forgery upon the instructions of Aggarwal to implicate one SC Barjatya, a businessman.
He made the same statement before the trial court and agreed to become the approver in the case in 2000 while filing an application for grant of pardon. CBI did not object to his plea and the trial court in September 2001 allowed the same.

Delhi HC, however, quashed the above order and referred the matter back to the trial court for a fresh decision.
CBI had then approached the apex court, which has now dismissed the plea.