New Delhi [India], March 18 : The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Central government to file its response to a PIL seeking guidelines to the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Central Vigilance Commission to carry out investigations in cases in a time-bound manner.
The PIL was filed by Advocate Manish Pathak who flagged the issue of pendency of over 2500 cases with the CBI.
No counter reply has been filed on part of the CBI, Pathak told the Supreme Court today. Further, it was asserted by the petitioner that when mighty people come to power, the CBI acts accordingly.
This leads to the delay in the investigation of the many case especially if they are bound to be high profile with high and the mighty people from the politics or the bureaucracy involved in it and thus this result in pending of cases since years even decade", the petitioner submitted.
After hearing the submissions, a bench led by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna asked the Centre to file a reply to the PIL within 4 weeks and a rejoinder as well.
Further, the top court said that it will hear the matter next in the month of July and will also consider appointing an Amicus Curiae to assist the court in dealing with the PIL.
As per the PIL petition, it was submitted that delays in investigations on part of the CBI and the CVC are attributable to the lack of guidelines in the Delhi Police Establishment (DSPE) Act of 1946 or in the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) Act of 2013.
"Thus for this reason the agency has been often been even criticized number of times for its mishandling of several scams and cases handled by it in the past. It has also been criticized for dragging its feet investigating prominent politicians, such as P.V. Narasimha Rao, Jayalalithaa, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav this tactic leads to their acquittal or non-prosecution" the plea read.