A court has reprimanded the CBI for 'sleeping over' its 2015 order to return Rs 50,000 seized during a probe and directed the central probe agency to return the amount with a cost of Rs 5,000.
VP Desai, special judge for Central Bureau of Investigation cases, also said the agency may recover the cost from the investigating officer's salary.
The matter dated back to September 2014, when the CBI seized Rs 50,000 in cash from the residence of applicant Peres Pezarkar during a search connected to a corruption case.
But as the CBI did not find sufficient evidence against the accused, the case was closed in November 2015. The court had then directed the agency to return the documents and articles seized during the investigation.
Pezarkar moved the court recently stating he was yet to get the money, and it was a deliberate non-compliance amounting to "disobedience of lawful orders passed by the court".
He urged the court that the CBI should also be directed to pay 18 per cent interest from November 2015 in addition to the original amount.
The court, in its order on November 15, said, "It is surprising that even after orders were passed by the predecessor of this Court, CBI has slept over the matter for almost ten years." The agency itself had come to the conclusion that it did not have enough material to proceed against Pezarkar, the court noted.
Demonetization was declared on November 8, 2016 (which rendered the original currency notes invalid), but the investigating officer did not take any steps to hand over the cash to Pezarkar in the buffer period of two months during which Pezarkar could have deposited the notes with a bank, the court said.
On the CBI's prayer that the cash should be deposited with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the court said "there is no hitch in considering" it.
But the CBI should ensure that after the old currency notes are deposited with the RBI, Pezarkar is provided with new currency notes, it said.
All these years, the applicant was deprived of Rs 50,000, and therefore the CBI should pay him a cost of Rs 5,000, it directed.
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