High court raps CBI, SIT for shoddy probe After two-week resignation drama, Kamat makes a comeback to Cong

The Bombay high court (HC) came down heavily on the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the state-appointed special investigation team (SIT) investigating the murders of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar and CPI leader Govind Pansare over the “shoddy probe”, “unsatisfactory, insipid progress” and their failure to “protect witnesses and prevent crucial probe-related information from getting leaked”.

A division bench comprising justices SC Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar Joshi trashed the CBI’s ‘progress report’ in the Dabholkar case, stating it was a mere collection of “news reports” that could at best be used as a “script for films”.

The court has now granted the agencies six weeks to come up with something concrete. It has asked the CBI to get a ballistic report from the forensic laboratory in Scotland Yard on the bullets and cartridges recovered from the bodies of Dabholkar, Pansare and Kannada author MM Kalburgi.

The bench said the CBI’s conduct in guarding information related to the probe was “juvenile”.

Congress leader and former union minister Gurudas Kamat said he will continue working for the party under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi on Thursday, apparently after the party high command convinced him to withdraw his resignation and sent him official communication to resume work on Wednesday night. The U-turn comes two weeks after a strongly-worded resignation announcement led to high drama at the party office in Mumbai .