CBI challenges city court verdict

CBI challenges city court verdict
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NEW DELHI, MARCH 1: The CBI has filed an appeal in Delhi High Court in the Priyadarshani Mattoo case challenging the verdict of a city court which let off the accused for want of sufficient evidence, agency sources said here today.

The appeal was filed in the High Court yesterday and was likely to come for hearing soon, the sources said.

The move came after the agency scrutinised the documents in the case to ascertain whether the verdict deserved to be challenged in a higher court or the case itself needed to be re-investigated, the sources said.

The CBI came in for severe criticism in Parliament during the winter session when members demanded resignation of its director after a city court on December 3 acquitted Santosh Kumar Singh, son of a senior police officer, due to lack of evidence and pulled up the CBI for not acting "in a fair manner".

The court gave the benefit of the doubt to Santosh for want of sufficient evidence in the case involving charges of rape and murder.

Concerned over its indictment by the court, the CBI is studying various possible "lapses" in the probe, the sources said.

In his first reaction after the court verdict, CBI director R K Raghavan said he was studying possible "lapses" in the probe and it would be reopened if required.

Raghavan had hinted the agency would re-investigate the Mattoo case if the High Court on appeal directed it to do so.

Meanwhile, the agency is also probing whether there were any "deliberate" lapses by the investigating team, the sources said and added an "in-house" probe was already on.

The issue had rocked the Lok Sabha when Congress and CPI-M sought removal of Raghavan in view of CBI's indictment by the court and demanded a statement on the functioning of the premier investigating agency from Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Mattoo was raped and strangulated to death on January 23,1996 at her uncle's residence in Vasant Kunj in South Delhi.