Police top brass on Monday claimed any police official (not necessarily a senior officer) could investigate the Rs 5,800cr cheating case registered at Airport police station against MIAL and its promoters, bureaucrats and police officials including ACP and DCP.
Deputy commissioner of police Dhananjay Kulkarni, a PRO with Mumbai police said: "There is nothing in law that states investigation in such cases (where police officials are the accused) is to be done by official of a certain rank," adding: "A thorough investigation will be conducted in the case."
However, legal fraternity differs. Such an investigation could be biased, and as per police manual, only a senior officer of equivalent or above rank (the highest ranking accused in this case is a DCP) from a different zone should investigate (the case) under the supervision of the court concerned, they feel.
"There are clear cut instructions in police manual (regarding such cases) where it's stated that the investigation should not be done in the same police station. It should be conducted by a higher ranking police official from a different zone" said advocate Ram Mani Upadhyay.
Ahmed Abdi, another lawyer, said: "Ideally the investigation should be handed over to the economic offense wing (EOW) since it involves a large amount. Moreover, local police investigating the case could result in they being partial to their colleagues or bosses."
A case of alleged cheating and forgery was registered against civil aviation joint secretary Alok Sinha, GVK group chairman GVK Reddy and MD of Mumbai Airports Authority Ltd (MIAL) Sanjay Reddy, after a petitioner had complained that private bodies had made undue profits of Rs5,800 crore in modernising the Mumbai airport (which was revealed in a CAG report in December).
A MIAL spokesperson meanwhile said the company would comment only after going through the contents of the complaint.
The petitioner, Vishwas Bhamburkar, an RTI activist, has also filed a case against four police officers for having failed to register an FIR after the CAG report was released last December. To an RTI question the activist had raised with the police, cops replied that they had forwarded it to MIAL. Bhamburkar then approached the Andheri metropolitan magistrate court complaining that the police were conniving with MIAL and had not filed an FIR.
Based on Andheri metropolitan magistrate court's order, the Airport police registered an FIR against PI Vijay Sathe, senior PI Rajendra Nagbhirey, ACP Madhukar Sankhe and the then DCP Namdeo Chavan.
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