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New Delhi: Observing nepotism and patronage has no place in distribution of public resources, Supreme Court on Monday directed a CBI inquiry into the allegation of allotment of public contracts worth over Rs 1,200 crore by the Arunachal Pradesh govt to companies owned or controlled by CM Pema Khandu’s close family members.Taking note of CAG reports that flagged various gaps in the decision-making process in awarding tenders in the last 10 years, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and N V Anjaria said the state and its instrumentalities cannot confer benefits according “to the whims of any political or administrative functionary”.The court rejected all defences put by the state govt, including that the contracts in question were miniscule, and said it was a fit case for probe by a central agency as the allegation was against the CM.The Supreme Court said the evidence showed that the superior was killed by a rifle bearing butt number 351 but the accused’s rifle’s butt number was 329 and it was difficult to accept the contention that the rifles got inadvertently exchanged 10 days before the incident.“It is difficult to accept that in a disciplined force, exchange of rifles allotted to two jawans would remain unnoticed for 10 long days. Significantly, the duty register for 18th May, 2014 (date of incident) was not led in evidence. In the absence of other cogent evidence to support this circumstance, in our opinion, it would not be safe to sustain the conviction on mere suspicion,” the bench said.“It is trite law that every link in the chain of circumstantial evidence must be conclusively established. Even a single missing or weak link may prove fatal to the prosecution’s case. In the present case, the evidence on record falls short of the standard of proof required in criminal law and does not exclude every reasonable hypothesis consistent with the innocence of the appellant. Consequently, in our considered opinion, it (the evidence) is wholly insufficient to warrant his conviction,” the court added.
