New Delhi, October 8 (Daily Kiran) : The Delhi High Court has mandated the initiation of criminal proceedings against six officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). These officials are accused of deliberately providing false statements in court regarding a case involving the dismissal of an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, Ashok Kumar Agarwal. The false testimony was related to correspondence with the administrative ministry concerning an asset disproportionate to income case.
Justice Madhu Jain issued this directive while hearing a criminal appeal filed by Agarwal. He contested a previous ruling from the Rouse Avenue Court, which had denied the initiation of proceedings against the CBI officers under Section 340 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).
The High Court instructed the special judge to file a written complaint against CBI officers Sushil Diwan, Vineet Vinayak, Amit Kumar, Raman Tyagi, Prem Kumar Gautam, and Mohammad Azad for alleged offenses under Sections 191, 193, and 209 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The complaint must be submitted to the relevant magistrate within four weeks of the decision. This case is linked to a prosecution initiated by the CBI against Agarwal under the Prevention of Corruption Act based on a sanction order issued on November 26, 2002.
In January 2016, the Delhi High Court declared the sanction invalid, leading the special judge to acquit Agarwal in March of that year. Following this, the CBI considered challenging the ruling in the Supreme Court. On June 8, 2016, the Ministry of Law and Justice advised against pursuing the matter further in the High Court.
This advice was communicated to the CBI through the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) on July 1, 2016. Subsequently, Agarwal sought the release of documents seized during the investigation.
In its response filed on August 2, 2016, the CBI opposed the release of certain documents, stating that correspondence was ongoing with the administrative ministry regarding further legal actions. The special judge then ordered the CBI to provide a clear response indicating whether any appeal or review petition had been filed or was pending.
On August 8, 2016, Agarwal submitted an application under Section 340 of the CrPC, alleging that the statement was factually incorrect, as there was no actual correspondence with the administrative ministry at that time. The CBI had already received legal advice from the Ministry of Law and Justice not to proceed with the case at a higher forum.
The High Court noted that the CBI had proposed to revisit the case and seek further legal advice from the DoPT on August 8. In a supplementary response filed on August 9, the CBI stated that it had decided in principle to challenge the January 2016 ruling and that this proposal had been sent to the department on August 8.
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