Supreme Court to CBI: Probe ‘ 1,200cr contracts to Arunachal CM’s kin’ | India News
NEW DELHI: Nepotism and patronage have no place in the distribution of public resources, Supreme Court One indicated on Monday CBI A probe into allegations of allocation of public contracts worth over Rs 1,200 crore by the Arunachal Pradesh government to companies owned or controlled by members of CM Pema Khandu’s close family.Noting the CAG’s reports revealing various loopholes in the tender awarding process over the last 10 years, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and NV Anjaria said the state and its instrumentalities cannot grant benefits “at the whim of any political or administrative functionary”.The court rejected all the defenses given by the state government, including that the contracts were small, and said it was a case fit for a central agency probe as the complaint was against the chief minister.The Supreme Court said that the evidence shows that the superior was killed by the butt of rifle number 351 but it is difficult to accept that the butt number of the accused’s rifle was 329 and the rifles were inadvertently exchanged 10 days before the incident.“It is difficult to accept that in a well-disciplined force, the exchange of rifles allotted to two jawans would go unnoticed for 10 days. Significantly, the duty register of 18th May, 2014 (the date of incident) was not led to evidence. In the absence of other suitable evidence to support our opinion in these circumstances, it would not be safe to uphold our opinion. Mere suspicion,” the bench said.“It is settled law that every link in the chain of circumstantial evidence must be conclusively established. Even a missing or weak link can prove fatal to the case of the prosecution. In the present case, the evidence on record falls short of the standard of proof required in criminal law and does not exclude every reasonable inference. Totally insufficient to convict him,” the court added.
