Pramesh Jain
The High court on tuesday refused to stay investigation into the involvement of Hemanth Nimbalkar, IPS but at the same time directed the CBI not to take coercive action against him.
The order was issued on Tuesday after Mr. Nimbalkar approached the Karnataka High court seeking quashing of FIR filed against him by the CBI.
Justice John Michael Cunha directed the Central Bureau of Investigation not to take coercive action against Nimbalkar.
The FIR filed by CBI against IMA founder and others including Mr. Nimbalkar for allegedly abetment to IMA activities while another separate FIR filed against him under Prevention of Corruption act for accepting illegal gratification in the form of electronic gadgets and other benefits to give favourable reports.
Refuting the charges Mr.Nimbalkar said that he has forwarded to his seniors which were submitted to him by his juniors.The report was not final as it has to be approved by his seniors, he said.
He further said that for the same offence two FIRs have been filed which is not permissible in the law.
Special public prosecutor P Prasanna Kumar argued that the witness and material for both the cases are entirely different.
It may be recalled that the then Assistant commissioner,LC Nagaraj facing similar charges had approached the court on the same ground and his petition has been dismissed by the court .
Moreover the CBI also assured the court that there was no proposal to arrest the accused officer but planned to concluded the investigation by April 2021.
Considering the arguments the court refused to stay investigation against Mr.Nimbalkar and directed the Investigating officer to continue investigation and file the status report in the next hearing.
