Chennai, Nov 3 (PTI): The Madras High Court has rejected a plea from two former Tamil Nadu police officials, including a then IG, to restrain the CBI from proceeding with the investigation into a case involving Pazee Forex Trading India Private Limited in Tiruppur.

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The charge against the two officials - Pramod Kumar, IPS, the then Inspector General of Police, West Zone, Coimbatore, and V Mohan Raj, formerly the Inspector of Police, CCB, Tiruppur - was that they had allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs 3 crore to protect K Mohan Raj, K Kathiravan and A Kamalavalli, all directors of the Pazee, the main accused in the case.

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The company had allegedly collected about Rs 100 crore from gullible depositors with a false promise of return with huge interest and cheated them.

The FIR in the case was registered in 2011. When the petitions were filed by the two police officials, the investigation was conducted by the CBI, Economic Offences Wing in Chennai.

Rejecting the petitioners' contention, Justice C V Karthikeyan on Tuesday said the CBI cannot be charged with prejudice. It did not pick and choose them from thin air and arrayed them as accused, he said.

The CB-CID (crime branch wing of the State police) in Vellore, which had conducted the probe initially, had gathered materials against them. The CBI consolidated those and gathered further materials and filed the final report. If the CBI had not investigated, the Vellore CB- CID would also have drawn the same conclusion, the judge said.

Turning down another contention that there was no need or demand for CBI probe, the judge referred to an earlier order of a single judge of the High Court, who had ordered the transfer of the case to the CBI.

It showed there had been application of mind on the facts which existed. The fact was registration of an FIR of a woman missing (Kanakavalli, one of the main accused) case. She only alleged she had been extorted of Rs 3 crore by the two police officials.

The natural inference was whether that particular money formed part of the amounts obtained from the depositors or not. This inference was balanced with the earlier observation in the order that in spite of anticipatory bail being dismissed, the directors had not been taken into custody.

A suspicion had arisen whether they were not arrested because Rs.2.95 crore was paid to the police officials. "That is a question which I would leave it open for the trial judge to examine. The transfer of investigation to the CBI and subsequent investigation by it are both confirmed," the judge said and dismissed the petitions.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)