PATNA, MARCH 20: The Patna High Court today expressed displeasure over what it termed as ``inordinate delay'' in the grant of sanction by the Bihar Governor and Chief Secretary for prosecuting top politicians including former chief ministers Laloo Prasad Yadav and Jagannath Mishra, besides senior bureaucrats, in the fodder scam case.A division bench comprising Justice S N Jha and Justice S J Mukhopadhyay asked state additional advocate-general Ganga Prasad Rai to seek information from the principal secretary to Governor C R Venkatraman and Chief Secretary B P Verma on how long it would take to grant sanction for prosecuting the scam accused.
The court's directive came when the Central Bureau of Investigation's standing counsel, B K Shukla, informed that the investigating agency was awaiting sanction from the Governor as also the state government for prosecution of some top politicians and bureaucrats involved in the case.
Shukla told the court that the CBI had in August last year officially sought thegubernatorial nod for prosecuting some top politicians in yet another scam case RC 64(a)96 relating to fraudulent withdrawals of more than Rs 87 lakh by Animal Husbandry Department officials from the Dumka treasury.
The court also took serious exception to the delay in grant of sanction by the Union Government for prosecuting some IAS officers involved in the case and asked the counsel for Union Government, Ajay Tripathy, to report to the court the reason behind the delay.
Tripathy tried to impress upon the court that sanction was delayed as there was a caretaker government at the Centre ``to take care of routine affairs''. The division bench gave the go-ahead to CBI joint director U N Biswas to reorganise the investigating team for speeding up investigations.
The court gave the directive when Biswas, who was also present, told the court that the two of the agency's police superintendents, V S Kaumudi and R K Asthana, had expressed their desire for repatriation to their parent cadres while SP (Ranchi) SK Malhotra had sought a transfer to Delhi.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
