JOIN USThe CBI has told the Supreme Court that transfer of its Joint Director Ashok Tewari from the 2G spectrum and Aircel-Maxis scam probe was not going to imperil the overall investigation as he was not associated with the cases since their inception.
It claimed that Tewari was merely supervising the investigation and so the court's embargo on transferring investigating officers till the conclusion of the trial in 2G cases was not applicable in his case.
The CBI's response came to the apex court's notice on BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's plea contending that the senior officers were shifted soon after former Finance Minister P Chidambaram was questioned in the Aircel-Maxis scam.
“The investigation is not at all imperilled by his (Tewari) transfer. Further, because of administrative reasons including empanelment of higher posts, tenure at centre, other administrative exigencies in the CBI, the superior officers at the level of Joint Director/Additional Director/Special Director have to be shifted or given new assignments. But to construe that these would imperil the ongoing investigation is unfounded,” the agency submitted.
With regard to Swamy's charge of proposed transfer of Additional Director R K Dutta, the CBI maintained that he was still in place to supervise the investigation and that in fact a proposal has been sent by CBI Director Anil Sinha to the government for promoting Dutta as a Special Director in the agency.
A week after questioning Chidambaram in December, Tewari was reassigned to head the agency’s Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency set up to probe the conspiracy angles of Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.