Priyanka Tiwari
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Suspense crime, Digital Desk : In a high-stakes courtroom battle, veteran lawyer and Member of Parliament Kapil Sibal launched a blistering attack on the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), arguing that its corruption case against a retired Allahabad High Court judge is based on pure speculation and lacks a single shred of concrete evidence.
Sibal was defending former Justice Shri Narayan Shukla and his wife, Suchita Tiwari, who are accused of accepting a Rs 25 lakh bribe from the Prasad Institute of Medical Sciences in a "medical college scam." The CBI's entire case hinges on a dramatic claim: that after receiving the bribe, the judge's wife attempted to destroy the evidence by burning the cash.
During a hearing on the framing of charges, Sibal dismantled the prosecution's narrative, telling the special CBI court that the agency has no factual basis for its claims. The CBI’s prize evidence is a pile of partially burnt currency notes recovered from the couple’s residence. However, Sibal forcefully argued that finding burnt cash does not automatically prove it was bribe money.
"How can you presume it was part of the Rs 25 lakh? There is no evidence to show that this cash was a product of the alleged crime," Sibal contended. He repeatedly stressed that the CBI has failed to produce any witness, any money trail, or any corroborating facts to link the burnt notes to the alleged bribe from the medical college.
Sibal argued that framing charges is a serious judicial step that cannot be taken on the grounds of mere suspicion or conjecture. He asserted that the CBI is asking the court to make a giant leap of faith—from finding burnt currency to concluding it was illicit money being destroyed—without providing any evidence to connect the dots.
"There is not an iota of evidence," Sibal declared, insisting that without a factual foundation, the court has no grounds to proceed with framing charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Indian Penal Code. The case now rests on whether the court will see enough substance in the CBI's claims or agree with Sibal that the prosecution's case is, quite literally, built on ashes.
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