The Madras High Court has ordered CBI probe into multi-crore gutkha scam on allegations of bribing ministers and top police and government officials for manufacture and sale of gutkha in Tamil Nadu.

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose passed the order on two PILs filed by DMK MLA J Anbazhagan and social activist ‘Traffic’ KR Ramaswamy respectively.

The case is related to a raid by the Income Tax department on offices, residences and godowns of a gutkha manufacturer in Tamil Nadu in 2016 in which the diary seized listed out ‘alleged’ bribe payments made to various top officials in the police and the government.

“The underground gutkha business is a crime against society which needs to be curbed. We deem it appropriate to direct the CBI to investigate all aspects of the offence of illegal manufacture, import, supply, distribution and sale of gutkha and other forms of chewable tobacco, which are banned in Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry,’ said the order.

This order is not only imperative to stop the menace of surreptitious sale of gutkha and chewable forms of tobacco, which pose a health hazard to people in general and in particular the youth and to punish the guilty, but also to instil faith in people of fairness and impartiality of the investigation.

“We see no reason for the State to view the entrusting of investigation to the CBI as an affront to the efficiency or efficacy of its own investigation system and we make it absolutely clear that this direction is not to be construed as any definite finding of this Court of the complicity of any constitutional functionary or of any specific official of the State Government,” the order said.

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