SC for CBI reply on AAP Govt's plea for return of seized docs

New Delhi, March 4: The Supreme Court on Friday, March sought response from CBI on Delhi government's plea to return them the documents seized during raids at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's principal secretary Rajendra Kumar's office here in December last.

A bench of justices Ranjan Gogoi and P C Pant also issued notice to CBI on AAP government's plea challenging the Delhi High Court decision allowing the probe agency to retain the documents seized during raids.

It had put on hold the trial court's direction to hand over the seized documents to the Kejriwal government.

CBI had raided office of Kumar on December 15 last year and registered a corruption case against him and others alleging "he had abused his official position by favouring a particular firm in the last few years in getting tenders from a Delhi government department".

While seeking stay on operation of February 10 decision of the High Court, Delhi government alleged that there was "illegality in passing the order and setting aside the well- reasoned decision of the trial court".

It said that "CBI under the garb of search warrant cannot seize documents indiscriminately which are not in any way related to the case".

Senior advocate Rajiv Dhawan, representing Delhi government, submitted that the "investigating agency cannot enjoy absolute immunity not to reveal the relevance of the documents seized during investigation until the stage of filing of the charge sheet".

PTI