Raipur - The Supreme Court has imposed a stay on the ongoing investigation in the famous sex CD scandal case in the state, hearing the CBI petition. The CBI had filed a petition demanding the investigation of this case out of the state. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel is an accused in this case. The Supreme Court has also issued a notice to the state government and sought answers. On September 29, the CBI had applied this application in a three-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice.
Tushar Mehta, the government’s second most-senior law officer, told the Supreme Court that witnesses were being threatened in this case. Mehta told a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi that the CBI had filed a chargesheet against Baghel in this case before he became the state’s chief minister. The threats allegedly started after the Congress leader became the chief minister in the state.
Mehta said the witnesses in this case had given written complaints of intimidation and the state police had filed FIRs against witnesses and the complainant to scare them. The sleaze CD case has its origins in a complaint filed by BJP’s Rajesh Moonat back in 2017 when he was a minister in the Chhattisgarh government. Moonat had alleged that journalist Vinod Verma and Bhupesh Baghel, who was then the state Congress chief, were using what he had described as a “sex CD”, to blackmail him.
Verma, who had taken up an assignment with the state Congress as its strategist, was arrested in October 2017. Baghel was arrested in September 2018, around the same time that the CBI filed a chargesheet against the Verma, Baghel and three others. Baghel, who was leading his party’s campaign against the Raman Singh government in the state elections, refused to seek bail and remained in judicial custody for a couple of days, saying he will sit on ‘satyagraha’ in jail to protest against the government.
During the investigation of the sex CD scandal, the CBI investigation was affected after the suicide of Rinku Khanuja, who was an important character in the case. Ever since the government changed, it was said that CBI is engaged in the exercise of taking the matter out of the state. After applying in the Supreme Court, it is probable that a big development could come in this case.
