Special court tells High Court that CBI is not helping with Gutka case trial

Court Report

A special court in Chennai has told the High Court that the Central Bureau of Investigation is not cooperating with the trial in the Gutka case. The case involves 26 people, including former ministers C. Vijayabaskar and P.V. Ramana from the AIADMK rule, former DGP Rajendran, former Chennai city police commissioner George, and other top central and state government officials. They are accused of giving bribes to government officers to get permission to sell banned Gutka items. The trial has been going on in the Chennai special court since the year 2018, and the chargesheet has also been filed.

CBI Response

The special court wrote a letter to the High Court asking for three more months to finish the trial. High Court judge Lakshminarayanan heard the matter and ordered the special court to submit a report. When submitting this report today, the special court made the charge that the CBI is not giving its cooperation for the case. In response, the CBI stated that it will cost five lakh rupees to get data from 78 electronic sources and that it will take 20 days to copy this data. The agency also asked the court to direct the accused persons to submit the disks that were already given to them.

Context

High-profile corruption and bribery cases involving former government ministers and senior police officials often take many years through Indian courts due to complex procedural delays and large volumes of digital evidence. The CBI functions as India's premier investigation agency, while special courts are set up to handle specific long-pending or sensitive matters more closely.