The apex bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta stayed the HC order passed on August 29 ordering reconstitution of the probe team under the supervision of Special Director Rakesh Asthana.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed an order by the Patna High Court, replacing the Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) with the Special Director as the supervising officer in the probe into the rape of 30 girls at Bihar's Muzaffarpur shelter home.
The apex bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta stayed the HC order passed on August 29 ordering reconstitution of the probe team under the supervision of Special Director Rakesh Asthana. The bench found no reason why such an order was required to be passed when there was no allegation of any deficiency in the probe team or its investigation. The Court even asked the HC to stay its hands from further hearing the case till it decided on the plea by CBI to consider shifting the monitoring of the case from Patna High Court to Supreme Court. The apex court will examine this issue on Thursday.
Attorney General KK Venugopal told the SC bench that the investigation team was constituted by the CBI Director on July 30 following which the case was under his direct monitoring. The probe team was in touch with 245 persons and was progressing steadily with the case when suddenly on August 23, the Patna HC appointed a lawyer as amicus curiae to conduct spot inspection of the shelter homes. This order was mentioned before the Supreme Court on September 11 and stayed the same day by the bench headed by Justice Lokur. This is the second order of the HC to be stayed by the apex court.
The apex bench observed, "We see no reason why the existing team needs to be changed at this stage. That will be detrimental to the investigation. We also see no reason why a new team be constituted headed by Special Director and not Director, who is the head of the organisation."
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