Agusta case: Supreme court relief for Sonia, Congress netas

New Delhi: In a relief to Congress, the Supreme Court on Friday refused to interfere with the ongoing probe in the AgustaWestland chopper scam and dismissed a plea to direct the CBI to lodge FIR against Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other party members whose names were mentioned in an Italian court order.
A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and C Nagappan said the probe in the case was already going on and it was for the investigating agency to take a call on who were to be prosecuted on the basis of the evidence collected by it.The court disposed off a PIL filed in the aftermath of the Italian court’s order in which names of Sonia Gandhi, Ahmed Patel and other Congress members were mentioned.
At the outset, solicitor general Ranjit Kumar told the bench that the Centre had already constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to conduct the probe in which FIR was lodged on March 12, 2013.
Pleading the court not to entertain the petition, he assured the bench that all accused would be brought to book. He said the charge-sheet would soon be filed in the case.
Advocate M L Sharma, who filed the petition, contended that free and fair probe was not possible in the scam due to alleged involvement of many high-profile personalities and that the investigation must be monitored by the apex court. “Within the Italian court judgement names of the above persons have been decided as accused who have taken bribe and are involved in the helicopter deal. Therefore an FIR and further criminal action must be initiated against them but due to political reasons, the government will not do the same and the matter will be thrown in the dustbin in coming period of time,” he said. He pleaded the court to direct the government to conduct probe against top Congress members, including Ahmed Patel and Oscar Fernandes, and former national security adviser M K Narayanan.
The bench, however, agreed with the government that the court’s interference was not required in the case at this stage. It refused to give credence to the Italian court’s order and said it was for CBI and SIT to decide on who were to be prosecuted. It , however, granted liberty to Sharma to approach the court if he came to know any deficiency in the ongoing probe.