NEW DELHI: Supreme Court Wednesday criticised CBI’s “friendly and cool” approach in probing serious irregularities in financial transactions of Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd (IHFL), now Sammaan Capital Ltd, and questioned corporate affairs ministry’s decisions to close corporate governance illegalities flagged by market regulator Sebi and ED.Clarifying it has neither expressed opinion on merits of the allegations nor commented on Sammaan Capitals, a bench of CJI-designate Surya Kant and Justices U Bhuyan and N K Singh said, “CBI has shown a very cool and friendly approach in this case. We have never seen such an approach in probing alleged misuse or siphoning of public money.”Its clarification came after senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi said there is not a single allegation of financial irregularities against the present group.SC said, “There is strong public interest in a threadbare investigation into allegations which create a genuine doubt about the multi-layered transactions and round-tripping of loan amounts. Even if a fraction of the allegation turns out to be prima facie true, it requires registration of FIR, followed by a proper investigation.”It said, “Registration of FIR (by CBI and giving rise to a predicate offence) will strengthen the hands of ED, SFIO and Sebi.” Turning to allegations by advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for NGO Citizens Whistleblower Forum, the bench questioned the wisdom of the ministry in closing complaints of corporate governance irregularities against IHFL. “What is the interest of the ministry in this,” it asked.ED through additional solicitor general S V Raju complained that the directorate had sent a complaint in this regard to Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police, which had through a terse communication informed closure of complaints against IHFL, claiming to have found no substance behind the allegations. SC asked the Delhi Police commissioner to depute a senior officer from EOW with relevant documents to appraise the court about the nature of investigations carried out prior to closing the probe.It also directed the CBI director to convene a joint meeting within two weeks of senior officials from ED, SFIO and Sebi for charting out the course of investigation and whether formation of an SIT was required to probe the alleged widespread irregularities, which the NGO alleged to have involved IHFL, Reliance ADAG, Chordia group, and Rana Kapoor family group. SC posted the matter for further hearing after three weeks.Later, in a statement, Rohatgi said, “The present petition before SC does not contain any allegation against Sammaan Capital. The court has referred to concerns raised about the previous promoter, Sameer Gehlaut, who has no shareholding or involvement in the company today.”
