NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court Friday adjourned to April 23 the hearing in the controversial case regarding the bribes paid for clinching the 1.3 billion dollar deal for the purchase of Howitzer guns from A B Bofors of Sweden.
The hearing was adjourned by a division bench comprising justice S.R.Pandian and justice K.J.Reddy after all the parties agreed to it.
It has been widely alleged that top politicians and bureaucrats had garnered the massive kickbacks in the deal finalized during the regime of former premier Rajiv Gandhi. The dust kicked by the scandal was in no small measure responsible for the defeat of Gandhi’s Congress (I) party during the last general elections,
Continuing his submission, solicitor general Anand Deo Giri told the bench that the criminal proceedings could not be a subject matter of public interest litigations.
When an enquiry, trial or investigation is being conducted under the criminal procedure code, no one who is not an aggrieved party can challenge the same Giri told the bench,
The union government Thursday contended before the Supreme Court that no political party or member of public could be impleaded in a criminal case under investigation like Bofors.
Solicitor general Anand Deo Siri told a division bench comprising justice S R Pandian and justice K J Reddy such proceedings could not be subject matter of public interest litigations.
When an enquiry, trial or investigations is being conducted under the criminal procedure code, no one who is not an aggrieved party can challenge the same, he said.
The bench is hearing a batch of petitions by several political parties including the Janata Dal and the union government challenging the Delhi high court order issuing Suo Moto notices to the government and the central bureau of investigations asking them to explain why fir in Bofors case should not be quashed?
The solicitor general submitted that the scheme of the criminal procedure code which provides for investigation of the offences gives unfettered powers to the police to investigate the said offence or offences and no third party under the garb of the police interest litigation could challenge the same.
Giri said the concept of public interest litigation is absolutely foreign to the code of criminal procedure.
He submitted that the public interest litigation was intended to promote and vindicate public interest which demands that violations of constitutional or legal rights of large number of people who are poor, ignorant or in a socially or economically disadvantaged position should not go unnoticed and un-redressed.
Giri said the public authority against which public interest litigation is brought should be as much interested in ensuring basic human rights, constitutional as well as legal, as the petitioner who brings the public interest litigation before the court.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 19, 1991
