Special court seeks report from the CBI in Embraer case; refuses to proceed with trial

The court has directed the agency to furnish a report on the status of investigation and said it should be "duly" forwarded in four weeks.

A special court has refused to proceed ahead with the trial in the Embraer aircraft deal corruption case, calling the CBI charge-sheet "half baked" and observing that officials could not give a deadline on the completion of probe in the eight-year-old matter.

The court has directed the agency to furnish a report on the status of investigation and said it should be "duly" forwarded in four weeks.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had filed a charge-sheet against arms dealers Arvind Khanna, advocate Gautam Khaitan and businessman Anup Gupta on June 1 last year in the corruption case where kickbacks to the tune of USD 5.76 million were allegedly paid to swing a deal for three aircraft with the DRDO in favour of Brazilian firm Embraer.

The court had taken cognisance of the charges against the accused last year but the trial could not proceed as the CBI did not apprise the court of how much more time was required to conclude its investigation.

In its order on February 26 as well, the court had asked the agency for a time-line for completing the investigation in the case.

Recently, the CBI submitted in the court that investigation is underway as the Letters Rogatory from four countries -- Singapore, Brazil, the UAE and the UK -- are pending.

"Today, IO (investigation officer) has failed to give a tentative time required by him for concluding investigation...," the court noted while hearing the case on Wednesday.

Khaitan counsel Ramaditya Tiwari told the court that the CBI was very casual and careless while filing the status report on April 18 as the only question put up by the court on February 26 was to give a definite time-frame of the pending investigation. This has not been answered at all, the counsel said.

Instead the investigation is used as a tool to prejudice the basic rights of the accused by making him suffer through the rigours of never ending trial, Tiwari said.

The court said the allegations in the present matter pertain to the period 2003 onwards and the FIR was registered in 2016.

The accused persons cannot be left to the mercy of the investigating agency for whom a period of even eight years is insufficient to conclude the investigation, it observed.

"It is a matter of common knowledge that with such huge passage of time, when the investigation remains pending for almost a decade, crucial evidence is lost, the witnesses die, are not traceable and needless to say, the accused persons are made to face rigors of never ending trial," Special Judge Gaurav Rao pointed out.

He said the principles of natural justice and fair play require that the trial commences only once the investigation qua the alleged offences and allegations is complete on all aspects.

When the IO has failed to satisfactorily explain as to the exact quantum and nature of investigation that remains pending, which appears is not on limited aspects but a bulk part of the probe is still pending, this court is not inclined to currently proceed ahead with the trial, hear arguments on the point of the charge on this "half baked charge-sheet", the judge said.