SC sets aside Uttarakhand HC order directing CBI probe against ex-CM Trivendra Rawat

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside an order of the Uttarakhand High Court which directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate corruption allegations against former chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat.

The high court on October 27, 2020 had ordered the CBI probe into the allegations levelled against the BJP leader while quashing an FIR against journalists Umesh Sharma and Shiv Prasad Semwal.

The top court noted that the two journalists had moved the high court seeking quashing of an FIR against them and had not sought any inquiry into the allegations of corruption that they levelled in social media.

It said there was no prayer for an inquiry or to initiate criminal proceedings against Rawat.

A bench of justices M R Shah and C T Ravikumar said the order passed by the high court is unsustainable and in violation of the principles of natural justice.

"The impugned directions calling for a criminal investigation against the appellant and the observations made are hereby quashed and set aside. It is specifically noted that the orders are set aside on the aforesaid grounds alone," the bench said.

The high court verdict had come on two separate petitions filed by the journalists seeking the quashing of the FIR lodged against them in July 2020, under various provisions of the IPC including forgery and cheating, after a social media post by Sharma levelling allegations against Rawat.

Sharma had accused Rawat, who was then Jharkhand in-charge of the BJP, of alleged money transfers to accounts of his relatives in 2016 to support an appointment of a person in that state to head the Gau Seva Ayog.

Rawat was the chief minister of Uttarakhand between 2017 and 2021.