Fixing the deadline, the Supreme Court on Friday directed CBI to take over all the 185 cases in the multi-crore Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh, within three weeks. It also asked the Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to inform the court by August 7 about the number of vacancies in the CBI, which is facing difficulty in probing the large number of cases due to lack of manpower, and the steps taken to fill the posts.
"Take over all the cases in three weeks. On next date of hearing you should be in a position to tell us that all the cases have been taken over," a bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu said.
When Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for CBI, expressed the investigating agency's inability due to lack of staff in taking over the cases, the bench said, "You take over as many cases as possible."
At the outset, the Solicitor General said there are all together 185 cases and charge sheets have been filed in 78 of them and the priority of the CBI is to take over those cases in which the investigation was undergoing.
He said 55 cases are being examined by the STF/SIT and out of the remaining 130 cases, charge sheets have been filed in 49 and out of 81 which are under probe, 73 are related to cheating by candidates in examination which the CBI was preferring to take up at a later stage.
Regarding special courts, Kumar said there are 22 such courts including five in Bhopal, four in Gwalior.
The bench further said CBI should be in a position to complete within six weeks the task of appointing lawyers to prosecute the cases in various special CBI courts in Madhya Pradesh.
On Thursday, the CBI pleaded it to direct Madhya Pradesh government to provide at least 307 police officials of different ranks to assist it in probing the case.
The Court had on July 24 asked the CBI to inform it about the specific time frame by which it will take over entire investigation into the Vyapam scam cases so that the issue of monitoring can be decided.
