AgustaWestland: Forming SIT indicates govt means business

New Delhi, June 10: Rakesh Asthana, the Additional Director in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) who had probed the Godhra train burning incident will be the head of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that has been formed under the agency to probe the AgustaWestland case.

A 1984 batch IPS officer of the Gujarat cadre, Asthana had also probed the fodder scam.

The SIT will also probe the case one relating to the bank fraud allegedly committed by Vijay Mallya. CBI officials however say that in due course of time, the SIT would be handed over many more cases.

Why is an SIT needed?

The CBI is handling several cases at the moment. In some cases, it is important to have a dedicated team which could focus on the investigation of that case alone.

The reason behind handing over the AgustaWestland and Mallya cases to the SIT was because both included dealing with foreign agencies for information.

Dealing with the international agencies is time consuming and hence a dedicated team is required.

This team would not only deal with the international police, but also with the Interpol apart from other law enforcement agencies abroad.

In such cases, time is a major factor. Such cases involving a money trail need to be followed up on a daily basis failing which the dots cannot be joined.

Since the CBI officers are engaged in many cases, it was decided to set up a dedicated team. Investigations require a basic flow and if officers are handling more than one case at a time, then the chance of the momentum being lost is extremely high.

For now Asthana and his team would probe just the two cases. However in future as the investigations in these two cases come to a close more would be handed over to the SIT.

OneIndia News