The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday asked a special court in Delhi’s Tis Hazari permission for custodial interrogation of retired Orissa High Court judge IM Quddusi in a corruption case, ANI reported. The agency had arrested the judge and four others earlier on Thursday and produced them in court. The CBI also asked for five-day police custody for all the accused, but the court granted it only for four days.
The CBI had filed a corruption case against Quddusi for allegedly helping an Uttar Pradesh-based educational trust, which was barred by the Medical Council of India, settle the matter in the Supreme Court, according to The Times of India. Quddusi, was booked under Section 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. He and four others were also booked under Section 120 of the Indian Penal Code for criminal conspiracy.
Lucknow-based Prasad Institute of Medical Sciences was one of the 46 colleges that were barred by the government from admitting medical students till 2019 because of substandard facilities and not fulfilling other criteria. BP Yadav and Palash Yadav, who manage the trust that runs the college, then “entered into criminal conspiracy” with Quddushi and the others to settle the matter, the CBI’s First Information Report said.
Raids at the wrong house
The agency carried out raids in Delhi, Bhubaneswar and Lucknow, including in Quddusi’s house, on Wednesday. This, however, caused uproar as the CBI team initially went to the house of sitting Orissa High Court Justice CR Dash instead of Quddusi’s. Members of the Orissa High Court Bar Association stopped work to protest against the raids and said they would ask the Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court for a judicial inquiry into the incident, Bar & Bench reported.
The police, in a formal complaint, accused the agency of trespassing, NDTV reported. However, a CBI spokesperson said, “Rumours of raids at the premises of a sitting Orissa High Court judge are baseless.”
The CBI said there was confusion because the address of the sitting judge and Quddusi’s official address before his retirement were the same as per their records. “The team was immediately called back, and no raid happened at sitting judge’s house,” the spokesperson said.
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