The Centre today told the Uttar Pradesh government that its request for a CBI probe into the Noida killings should come in the form of a notification, in the proper format.

While the UP government had said yesterday that Principal Secretary (Home) Satish Kumar Aggarwal had sent a request on Saturday, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), under which the CBI functions, said it had received a letter through fax this morning. But it was sent back since it was not in the proper format, officials said.

The letter on the state home secretary’s letterhead requested the Centre to direct a CBI probe, a demand that first came from the Opposition after skeletal remains were found near in Noida’s Sector-31. Officials said the state government needed to send a proper notification as required under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act. Once this was received, the department would issue another notification empowering the CBI to investigate the case, they said. UP has already been asked to do the needful.

Incidentally, the request from the UP home secretary is learnt to have clubbed the Noida case with the Kavita case in Meerut.