The Supreme Court has directed former Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy to file an affidavit showing specific instances where the Central Bureau of Investigation has not proceeded against independent directors of the Reserve Bank of India, despite the availability of material.
The Bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Vikram Nath made the observations on Monday, while hearing a petition filed by Swamy, wherein he alleged that CBI was not proceeding against RBI officials for their role in various banking scams such as Kingfisher, Bank of Maharashtra, Yes Bank and others, despite having enough material.
The Apex Court said that it would examine the role of CBI, in case the petitioner prima facie showed that despite there being enough material against independent directors of RBI, the national agency neither filed charge sheets against them, nor proceeded against them.
Refuting Swamy’s allegations, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta contended that all these offences were being investigated by CBI, the Directorate of Enforcement and the Serious Fraud Investigation Office. If the role of Reserve Bank officials was made out in the process of investigation, they would be added as accused.
Appearing for both CBI and RBI, SG Mehta said that there could not be a direction to investigate a particular set of offenders, when the main offence was being probed. A prayer for probing a particular set of offenders when competent agencies were already investigating the scams was unsustainable, he added.
As per the top law officer, the averments made by Swamy were ‘broad propositions,’ which did not indicate any particular instance of an RBI official slipping under the radar of the investigating agency despite their involvement in financial scams. He said Swamy had not named a single officer, but only submitted a broad proposition asking all Reserve Bank officials to be prosecuted for these scams. This was not the correct way, added the SG.
Responding to Justice Gavai’s question that whether this court should make a roving enquiry, Swamy denied that he was inviting the top court of the country to initiate a ‘roving’ enquiry into the matter.
He asserted that he was merely relying on an earlier ruling in the Delhi Development Authority vs Skipper Construction Company Private Limited case of 1997 (11 SCC 430), in which the Supreme Court had held that the Reserve Bank nominees played a central part in deciding whether a loan should be given and as such, should also be investigated by CBI.
The SG then assured the Apex Court that if any RBI Director was found to be involved in the scams, they would undoubtedly be investigated by the federal agency and dealt with in accordance with the law.
On the suggestion of SG Mehta that Swamy could directly provide the information that he was proposing to furnish in the affidavit to the investigating agency, the Apex Court told the Rajya Sabha MP to file the affidavit, stating that let this court also be satisfied on that aspect.
The Bench then listed the matter for further hearing after six weeks.