New Delhi: Yesterday, on Thursday, 12th May, the honourable Supreme Court of India directed the Kerala Police for setting up of a Special Investigation team- SIT for investigating the allegations of wife- swapping among Indian Navy Officers. The concerned bench of the Apex court comprising of the Chief Justice of India- T. S. Thakur further required that such Special Investigation Team should be headed by the Deputy Inspector General- DIG ranks officer. Moreover, the bench also preferred to reject a plea which was filed by the estranged wife of an accused Naval officer, where she claimed an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation- CBI into the charges. However, now with the direction to set up such SIT probe mechanism, the bench also asked the State police to complete the investigation, ‘preferably’ within 3 months.
Also, while deciding so, the bench also observed that the “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.” Thus, the top court’s bench found that the present case’s facts and circumstances are as such requiring the alleged offence’s better investigation by the “state Police.” Court while arriving at such conclusion also considered the various arguments raised by the Kerala Police, especially that of seventy witnesses already were examined in the said matter.
While so, it is notable that the concerned bench was hearing the plea which was filed by a estranged wife of Naval Officer who was claiming a CBI investigation in the FIR which she had filed alleging that her husband and other four Navy officers and the spouse of one of them indulged in the activities of the “wife- swapping”. Besides, such claim she also sought the transfer of the petition from the High Court of Kerala to Delhi High Court.
Adv. Faim Khalilkhan Pathan
