New Delhi, Oct 6 The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear the Punjab government's plea seeking a stay on a high court direction to the CBI to investigate corruption allegations against people linked to the AAP-led government and submit a report within two months.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana said it will hear the matter on Wednesday or Thursday after senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for the state government, sought its urgent listing.
Singh, while mentioning the matter for urgent listing, said that during election time, these kinds of cases are being trumped up.
CJI Kant observed that the court will see how many matters are there and till then, nothing will happen.
Singh persisted with the request and said that it's a clear case of federal structure being violated.
On October 5, the state government moved the top court against the Punjab and Haryana High Court's direction passed Monday on a petition filed by advocate Nikhil Saraf.
The allegations include cash for transfers and cash for getting favourable policies.
The petitioner submitted that no action has been taken yet, even after the Enforcement Directorate sent communications to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government.
It was contended that the allegations warranted an independent investigation as it raised serious questions about the state government's functioning.
The high court had also directed Punjab Police and the government that all documents pertaining to the case be handed over to the CBI.
The plea said, "If the impugned judgment is not stayed, the CBI will register an FIR against high public functionaries of the State on untested material, in disregard of section 17A and section 6 of the DSPE Act, and the situation will become irreversible."
It further said that the high court rejected the state's preliminary objection to the maintainability of a public interest petition filed by an advocate-in-person, declined the state's request for three weeks to complete a preliminary enquiry that was already under way, and entrusted the matter to the CBI with a direction to "register an FIR in the matter and proceed with the investigation forthwith" and to report within two months.
Assailing the high court's decision on various grounds, the Punjab government said that the impugned judgment suffers from errors like it treats information shared under Section 66(2) of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as a direction that makes registration "inevitable", contrary to 2022 decision of the apex court in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary case.
The plea said the high court's judgement directs registration of an FIR into decisions of public servants on transfers, tenders and policy without the previous approval mandated by Section 17A of the PC Act, and faults the bureau for not associating a serving officer whom it could not lawfully enquire into without such approval.
The state government said the judgment sends a central agency into the state, where general consent under Section 6 of the DSPE Act stands withdrawn since November 8, 2020, without a finding of the exceptional circumstances required by the state and without any finding that the bureau of investigation is incapable or biased.
It urged that in the alternative, the court may direct that the Bureau of Investigation of Punjab shall complete the preliminary enquiry and place an action-taken report before this court within such time as this court may fix, and that the observations in the impugned judgment shall not be relied upon by any agency or court pending the disposal of this petition.
