In Brief
The Supreme Court dismissed interlocutory applications seeking direction for a Special Investigation Team to investigate alleged financial crimes and misconduct by the newly appointed Central Vigilance Commissioner. The petitioner relied on loose documents, excel sheets, and electronic records recovered during raids on Aditya Birla Group and Sahara India Group alleging cash payments to political functionaries. The Court held that such loose papers and electronic records, not maintained as regular books of account, are inadmissible under Section 34 of the Evidence Act and lack evidentiary value. Following precedent, the Court ruled that investigation cannot be directed against any person, particularly constitutional functionaries, based on legally irrelevant, inadmissible material without independent corroboration, emphasizing that doing so would enable easy abuse of investigative processes.
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