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Court throws out charges against CBI joint director

The Calcutta high court has trashed a central government chargesheet against U N Biswas, joint director, east, Central Bureau of Investigation, stating that the government had acted illegally and that the chargesheet looked like an attempt to victimise the official.

Justices Bhagabati Prasad Banerjee and Ronojit Kumar Mitra said such attempts to discourage an investigating officer would create a dangerous condition.

Biswas had attracted official censure when he called in the army to arrest former Bihar chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav in the fodder scam case. He had suggested then that the local police would be unco-operative for the job.

The bench said the officer was answerable to the court and not to the administration. The chargesheet had claimed the officer overstepped his authority when he sought the army's help to arrest Yadav. The letter Biswas sent to the army was in compliance with an oral order issued by the Patna court.

The Patna high court, noting the claim of Biswas's counsel that the central government and senior CBI officials were conspiring to remove him from the case, had ordered that reports in the case should be sent directly to the court and not to any other authority. So charges of insubordination did not hold water, Justices Banerjee and Mitra said.

The Calcutta high court judgment noted that the additional solicitor general, who appeared for the government, mentioned no law that Biswas had violated when he sought army aid. The judges said the matter on record proved it was justified.

The judges also noted that from the language of the chargesheet showed the authorities had already made up their mind before initiating an inquiry. The chargesheet, the judges concluded, "was unwarranted, unfair, and illegal".

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