Mohammad Rafiq, J. - (1.) ALTHOUGH the arguments were made on the merits of the case by wives of both petitioners because of the ongoing strike of the lawyers. Wife of petitioner Radhey Shyam produced some documents alleging that Sukhveer Singh, who is complainant in the present case, had certain business transactions with petitioner Radhey Shyam, which aspect of the matter has not been looked into by the Investigating Officer.
(2.) THE Investigating Officer, who is present in the court, submits that if any such documents are given to him, he would definitely examine them. The documents supported by the affidavits of the wives of petitioners have been handed over to him. The wives of the petitioners have submitted that the petitioners in both the cases were arrested on 17.07.2010 and by today they have already completed 62 days in police custody whereas, according to the provisions of Section 167 of the Cr.P.C., their custody cannot be authorized beyond the period of 60 days because the offences alleged to have been committed by them, are not punishable either with death or imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term more than 10 years, in which case, 90 days would be outer limit for doing so according to proviso (a) (i) of Section 167 of the Cr.P.C.
(3.) WHEN this matter was listed before this Court on 06.08.2010, the Special Public Prosecutor appearing for the CBI submitted that efforts shall be made to get the challan filed shortly and then the matter was adjourned to 18.08.2010 to enable the investigating agency to do so. Such adjournments were granted on 25.08.2010 and 26.08.2010 also. The matter was then listed on 13.09.2010, on which date the wives of the petitioners appeared whereas none appeared for the CBI. The matter was deferred for today requiring the Investigating Officer to appear with the case -dairy and also the status -report. The status report submitted by the Investigating Officer Shri Jitendra Kumar, has been taken on the record, which indicates that the matter is still at the stage of investigation and that some more time is likely to be consumed in completion of investigation and ultimately filing of challan, if the CBI decides to do so. The Investigating Officer, however, is not in a position to deny the fact that two offences that are alleged to have been committed by the petitioners i.e. Section 7 and Section 13(2) read with Section 13(i)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act are punishable by maximum sentence of 5 years and 7 years respectively. The offence under Section 120 -B with the aid of which the petitioner Radhey Shyam has been arrayed as accused is also punishable in the same manner as if he had abetted the principal offence.;