It may not have a good record at convictions but the CBI does not mind loosening the purse strings for a battery of lawyers to fight its cases. Sample this: in the infamous Naval War Room case, CBI counsel Mukta Gupta made a neat Rs 10,92,000 representing the agency in the Delhi High Court. She was paid the fees ostensibly for her help in opposing the bail applications of some of the accused...most of whom managed to get bail anyway.
While money was being spent on its counsel thus, the CBI was also fighting a case to convict the accused in the lower courts. So far, if the RTI reply furnished by the CBI is to be believed, the agency has already paid Rs 2,10,000 to counsel Rajiv Mohan even as the trial plods on—thanks to the over-burdened judicial system.
But the most surprising entries in the list of legal fees are the details of hotel bills furnished by the counsel. Advocate Ujjwal Nikam, who has prosecuted several high-profile cases for the Mumbai police, was hired by the CBI in the 1993 Bombay blasts case. A hotel bill of Rs 1,67,200 has been paid by the CBI to host Nikam while he argued the case on their behalf. Similarly, Rs 85,796 was paid to advocate N. Natrajan as hotel bills for arguing on behalf of the agency in the case against Tiger Memon, another accused in the 1993 blasts.
But not all the counsel on the CBI panel seem to be in the same league. While Mukta Gupta got almost Rs 11 lakh for representing the CBI in the Delhi HC, another advocate, Nadeem Akhtar Khan, was paid a paltry Rs 2,500 for representing the agency in the Port Blair bench of the Calcutta HC. Clearly, even the Bureau feels some are more equal than others.
