While upholding the Bombay high court’s order for registering FIR against former Mumbai Congress president Kripashankar Singh in a corruption and disproportionate assets case, the Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the HC direction for attaching his properties even before their value is assessed.
However, a bench of Justices H.L. Dattu and A.R. Dave while modifying the HC order to some extent, directed Mr Kripashankar and his family members not to sell or transfer any property under investigation and asked the Mumbai police commissioner, appointed as in-charge of the probe by the HC, to submit a status report to the top court in six weeks.
Besides, Mr Kripashankar, his son Narendra Kumar Singh and daughter-in-law Sunita, who approached the top court against the HC order, were asked to furnish undertakings in the form of sworn affidavits that they will not in any manner change the status of their properties during the investigation.
The special investigation team formed by police commissioner Arup Patnaik to probe the case was permitted to reassess the exact value of several movable and immovable assets owned by Mr Kripashankar, his wife, son and daughter-in-law.
But the top court made it clear that when the reassessment is done, the new investigating team, headed by Mr Patnaik will not take into consideration the earlier assessment report prepared on March 30, 2011 by an ASP-rank officer, which was taken into account by the HC for ordering the attachment of their properties on February 22, 2012.
The top court also modified the HC direction about obtaining sanction for prosecution of Mr Kripashankar clarifying that it will be sought from the competent authority only after completing the probe, if required. The HC had issued a plain direction that the police “shall” obtain sanction for his prosecution without specifying when it should be done.
The top court, however, did not make any change in the HC’s order permitting Mr Patnaik’s team to collect documents on various moveable and immovable properties owned by Mr Kripashankar, his family members and make “independent” conclusions about the assets.