TN police to probe100 kg gold missing from CBI custody

The Madras High Court Friday ordered the Tamil Nadu Police to probe the disappearance of 103 kg gold,amounting to more than Rs 43 crore, from the agency’s custody, asking the CB-CID to register an FIR, the court said: “It may be an agni pariksha (trial by fire) for the CBI, but that cannot be helped. If their hands are clean, like Sita, they may come out brighter. If not, they would have to face the music.”  Rejecting the plea that the prestige of the CBI would come down if investigation is done by the local police. Judge P N Prakash said, “The court cannot subscribe to this view, because the law does not sanction such an inference. All policemen have to be trusted and it does not lie in the mouth of one to say that the CBI have special horns, whereas, the local police have only a tail.”

The CBI had seized the gold in connection with a case dating back to 2012 filed over allegations that officials of Minerals and Metals Trading Corporation of India (MMTC) in Chennai had shown undue favours towards Surana Corporation, which dealt in the import of gold and silver. n September 2013, the CBI registered another case, saying that while the seized gold was not wanted in the 2012 cases, it had found that Surana had imported the same in violation of the Foreign Trade Policy. In 2015, the CBI filed a closure report in the second case stating that “there is no adequate evidence forthcoming”. 

The CBI Special Court accepted the same but directed that the seized gold be handed over to the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT). This order was later set aside by the Madras High Court on Surana’s petition. But the SBI, which had given loans to Surana, filed a case seeking the company to repay the pending loans amounting to Rs1,160 crore. The bank moved the Special CBI Court seeking the seized gold.Coming down heavily on the CBI, the Court stated that the gold had been physically entrusted to the CBI Special Court, and it went missing from there. “The CBI would have cried foul from the rooftops and demanded the scalp of the Special Judge and his property clerk. The Special Judge and the property clerk would have been placed under suspension and would have even been arrested,” the judge said.

Now CBI says that internal enquiry has also been orderd . CBI has clarified that the agency in RC.24/2012, searched building of Surana Corporation limited, NSC Bose Road, Chennai and prepared a search list. The search list mentioned that 400.47 kg gold has been inventorised and was kept in safe and vaults of Surana, sealed in presence of independent witnesses and the MD of Surana corporation and its officials.

As per the directions of the High Court the vaults were opened in the  presence of official liquidator, officials belonging to six Banks and independent witnesses and inspected from 27/02/2020 to  29/02/2020 to hand over the gold to the lender banks of Surana Corporation. The seals affixed on the vaults were found intact. However, gold weighed only 296.66 kgs.  As the discrepancy between the quantity mentioned in search memo and as per the weight came to notice,  CBI promptly ordered an internal inquiry by a senior officer to look into the role of its officials.