Thaindian News

Panaji, March 17 (IANS) The union ministry of personnel will next week decide whether to hand over the police-politician-drug mafia nexus probe to the CBI, a central government counsel told the Bombay High Court here Thursday.

Justice S.C. Dharmadhikari and Justice F.M. Reis earlier said they might have to summon the union personnel secretary to know of the central ministry’s opinion on the drug nexus probe case. Then central government counsel Sandeep Amonkar assured the court that the final decision on handing over the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) would be taken on Tuesday.

The court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by student leader Sunil Kavthankar, who has demanded a CBI probe into the drug nexus case, in which police crime branch officials have been accused of sabotaging investigations.

The high court had expressed dissatisfaction at the central government delay in deciding on the investigation in the drug nexus case, in which the international media and the opposition have named state Home Minister Ravi Naik’s son.

Three separate criminal complaints have already been filed against two Israeli drug dealers, namely David Driham alias Dudu and Yaniv Benaim alias Atala, and several police officials.

State Advocate General Subodh Kantak said the state government only wanted two of these cases involving Atala and the police officials to be handed over to the CBI because charge sheets have already been filed in the case against Dudu.

Reacting to Kantak’s submission, petitioner Sunil Kavthankar said the state government was trying to protect the drug dealer.

“All the three cases are inter-related. The state government is trying to protect Dudu because in his confessional statement, he has named a lot of police and politicians who are a part of the drug nexus,” said Kavthankar. He is the president of the National Students Union of India (NSUI), which is a frontal organisation of the Congress party.