New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought response from the CBI and Uttar Pradesh government on vacating its stay on the monitoring of the multi-crore rupee foodgrain scam in the state by the Allahabad High Court.
A bench of justices A K Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar asked the state government and the agency, which is probing the scam, to file their response within two weeks.
The court had on April 18 last year stayed the high court`s order directing the agency to file status report before it after every two months.
The high court had passed a slew of directions on the petition filed by advocate Vishwanath Chaturvedi alleging large scale irregularities in distribution of foodgrains
supplied by the Centre under `Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojna (SGRY)` which were also illegally diverted to neighbouring countries from Uttar Pradesh.
Pleading to vacate the stay, advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for Chaturvedi, contended that proper investigation has not been done by the agency as it is not being monitored by the high court and only one person has so far been charge sheeted during last one year.
Accepting the contention of Bhushan, the bench asked the government and the agency to file their response and posted the matter for further hearing on March 28.
He further submitted that the CBI was not conducting a proper probe in the multi-crore scam as political considerations were coming in the way of the investigation
into alleged diversion of food materials to Bangladesh and Nepal.
"There are strong political reasons behind not taking strong actions on food grains scam since 2001.
To protect their political interest, either the central government or the CBI is taking any action whatsoever except in the case relating to Sitapur district," Chaturvedi said in his affidavit.
PTI
