Delhi HC keeps in abeyance its Oct 6 order directing perjury proceedings against five ex-CBI officials

New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) The Delhi High Court has kept in abeyance till the next date of hearing its October 6 order directing perjury proceedings against five former senior CBI officials before a magisterial court for allegedly making a factually incorrect statement in a case.

    Justice Mini Pushkarna, who heard the matter after a chance in roster, posted the matter to February next year.

    "The directions as contained in paragraph 63 and 64 of the impugned judgment dated 06th October, 2026, shall remain in abeyance, till the next date of hearing," Justice Pushkarna said.

    She noted that "prima facie case has been established by the applicants", "balance of convenience" is also in favour of the applicants and "irreparable injury shall be caused to the applicants", in case, interim order is not passed in their favour.

    Retired CBI DySPs Sushil Dewan and Raman Tyagi had approached the high court seeking recall of its order dated October 6 in which Justice Madhu Jain had ordered perjury proceedings against them and three other senior CBI officials.

    In his petition seeking recall of the order, Dewan had alleged that he was not served copy of the appeal, additional documents of any other pleadings filed by the applicant, former IRS officer Ashok Kumar Aggarwal.

    It alleged that Aggarwal had filed an application for advancing the hearing which was "neither served" upon him nor his counsel on the registered address.

    "Instead, it was deliberately served at the wrong and incorrect e-mail address, namely, adv.sushilkdube@gmail.com (source of same could be explained by petitioner or his counsel), which has never belonged to either the Applicant/Respondent No. 1 or his learned counsel," the petition has alleged.

    Dewan said that without any notice to him, the high court advanced the hearing, earlier scheduled on November 4 to September 22, "proceeded to hear the appeal in his absence, and reserved the matter for judgment on the same date".

    "It is further submitted that although the appeal sought the initiation of a complaint against six officers, only the Applicant/Respondent No. 1 was arrayed as a party. The remaining five officers were never afforded notice as mandated under Section 341 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, despite being concerned parties," he said seeking recall of the order.

    The case pertains to discharge of Aggarwal from a CBI case in 2016 on the ground of invalid sanction, after which he filed the application seeking release of seized documents.

    He had sought filing the perjury case against the CBI officers which was dismissed by the special court last year following which he had approached the high court.

    The CBI, in response to the application, claimed in the trial court that correspondence with the administrative ministry on further legal action in the matter was "underway" and it would therefore not be prudent to return the seized documents at this stage.

    In October 6 order, Justice Jain set aside the trial court order refusing to take action for perjury against the officials on Aggarwal's plea and held that the CBI had no right to present its internal proposal as a correspondence with the ministry.

    "The appellant's application under Section 340 CrPC filed before the learned special judge is therefore, allowed by this court," she had noted.

    The court clarified that the lower court shall proceed independently in the matter without being influenced by any observation made by it.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)