On Friday the Supreme Court said that it will not allow the court to be used as a political battleground. The Supreme Court ordered that a new Special Investigation Team (SIT) will investigate into the allegations of adulterated ghee being used in laddus distributed at Andhra Pradesh’s Tirupati temple under the previous YSRCP government.
‘The new SIT will be supervised by the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation’, said the Supreme Court. The panel will include two officers of CBI nominated by the director, two officers of the state police nominated by the state government, and one official of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
However, the Supreme Court noted that the Solicitor General has given a recommendation that a central government officer can be appointed to supervise the investigation. The court said, ‘We clarify that our order should not be construed as a reflection on the independence and fairness on the members of the state SIT. We have constituted the committee only to assuage the feelings of crores of people having faith in the deity’.
This came following the court on Monday asked the Centre if the investigation into the state government’s allegations should be transferred to an independent agency. It has also orally asked the state to keep away from the matter till the next hearing. The court had also said on the basis of lab reports of ghee samples showing contamination that it was very clear from the report that this is not the ghee which had been used and the prima facie indication was that the rejected ghee was sent for testing.
Questioning the Chandrababu Naidu-led state government, the court had said, ‘You ordered an investigation through SIT (special investigation team). What was the necessity to go to the press till the outcome of such an investigation was out. We expect Gods to be kept away from politics’.
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