Court imposes Rs 5,000 cost on CBI in Abhay Chautala’s DA case

NEW DELHI: CBI has been slapped with a cost of Rs 5,000 as "deterrence" by a special court for repeatedly seeking permission to submit additional documents in a disproportionate assets case involving INLD chief O P Chautala's son Abhay. The court, which allowed CBI'S plea to place on record some additional documents in the case, made it clear that the right of prosecution was "not absolute and unchecked" and said it should resort to "due diligence" while filing charge sheet.

"...this is the fourth application moved by prosecution to file additional documents on record. This right of prosecution is not absolute and unchecked, to the extent that, at any stage prosecution may come with similar applications.

If these documents were material for just decision of the case, why was this fact not considered earlier while moving similar applications.

"The CBI being premier investigating agency should resort to due diligence while filing the charge sheet so that all relevant and important documents, for just decision of the case, are filed along with the charge sheet and plea of inadvertence is permissible only for one or two occasions," Special CBI Judge Sanjay Garg-i said.

"To put a deterrence on CBI, cost of Rs 5,000 is imposed to be deposited in DLSA", the court said, directing the probe agency to provide copy of these documents to accused at earliest.