SC fines CBI’S Rao ₹1L, asks him to sit in courtroom corner

CONTEMPT OF COURT A Cji-led bench said M Nageswara Rao disobeyed an explicit SC order during his time as interim CBI director

NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday found the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) M Nageswara Rao guilty of contempt of court for disobeying its explicit order and transferring an officer probing alleged sexual abuse of inmates of a Bihar shelter home during his time as interim director of the agency.

A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi and justices LN Rao and Sanjeev Khanna imposed a fine of ~1 lakh on Rao, additional director at CBI, and sentenced him to sit in a corner of the court until it rose for the day.

The bench rejected Rao’s defence that the transfer order was not “wilful disobedience” but an “error of judgement” on his part.

CBI’S additional legal advisor S Bhasuran was also found to have violated the court order because, in his legal opinion, he favoured joint director AK Sharma’s transfer without seeking the court’s prior approval.

Bhasuran advised the agency to get post-transfer approval from the top court. He was also fined ~1 lakh and ordered to sit in a corner until the court rose tor the day.

“If this is not contempt, then what would it be?” the bench asked attorney general KK Venugopa,

who put up a strong defence of Rao and Bhasuran. Venugopal said the two committed a “serious mistake” but not wilfully so.

“I do not think it’s a case where they should be punished. It is very clear that it was not wilful,” the AG said. NEW DELHI: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is considering a proposal by a high-level committee to take away 97 oil and gas fields being explored by the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) and auction them to private sector energy companies, two government officials aware of the development said.

The committee comprising top civil servants, including cabinet secretary PK Sinha and headed by NITI Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar, has proposed “complete marketing and pricing freedom” to potential investors, one of the two officials said on condition of anonymity. These are part of 149 marginal fields that contribute about 5% of the country’s total oil and gas production.

The committee has, however, allowed ONGC and OIL to retain 52 of the total 149 marginal oil and gas fields on the condition that they deliver results in terms of production and financial performance within a definite time frame, the first official added.

According to the committee’s report, ONGC and OIL are on notice for these 52 fields.