GUWAHATI: The Gauhati High Court has directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the investigation inti the high-profile Louis Berger bribery scandal in Assam
The High Court, in response to a PIL (Number 85 of 2015) filed by social activist Bhaben Handique and two others, has issued an order asking the CBI to take over the investigation into the case from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Assam Police and bring the investigation into a logical conclusion.
A Division Bench of the court in its ruling said, “The case diary shall be submitted to by the CID in a sealed cover to the custody of the Registrar General of the Gauhati High Court who shall hand it over the same, after completing necessary formalities, to the CBI.”.
The court also directed Assam government and police to cooperate fully with the CBI in the investigation.
“It is crystal clear that the investigating agency has not investigated the case in the right earnest and has been conducting the same in a partisan manner,” the court in its order said.
The CID in Assam had registered a case (41/15) in the year 2015 on the basis of complaint lodged by Bhaben Handique and two others in the wake of American company, Louis Berger pleading guilty before a New Jersey court of paying bribes to obtain contracts as consultants of water supply projects in Goa and Guwahati (Assam).
The alleged scam had taken place during the previous Congress government in Assam headed by Tarun Gogoi as the chief minister and Himanta Biswa Sarma was the Guwahati Development Department minister at that time. Sarma is now a minister in the incumbent BJP government in Assam as he had shifted allegiance to the BJP in November 2016. Both Gogoi and Sarma have denied their involvement in the scam.