SC rejects plea of Naval officer’s wife

12 May, New Delhi

The Supreme Court Thursday rejected the plea of the wife of a Naval officer seeking a CBI inquiry into her FIR in which she alleged that besides her husband, four other Navy officers indulged in wife-swapping, but ordered the Director General (DG) of Kerala Police to set up an SIT headed by a police officer not below the rank of a DIG.

After hearing the plea filed by the wife of a navy officer in Kerala, a division bench, comprising Chief Justice Tirath Singh Thakur and Justices R Banumathi and Uday Umesh Lalit, refused her plea for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry.

The Apex Court, however, asked the Director General of Kerala Police to set up an Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by a police officer not below the rank of a DIG. It also ordered the Kerala police to conclude the probe in the 2013 FIR “preferably” within three months.

Dismissing the plea for a CBI inquiry into the matter, Justice Banumathi said, “It is well settled that the extraordinary power of the constitutional courts in directing CBI to conduct investigation in a case must be exercised rarely in exceptional circumstances, especially, when there is lack of confidence in the investigating agency or in the national interest and for doing complete justice in the matter.”