NEW DELHI, Aug 21: India’s Supreme Court ordered on Thursday the interrogation of several “important people” in a probe into a scrapped, controversial plan to build a garish shopping mall near the Taj Mahal.

The court, investigating allegations that state funds were to have been used in the halted project, told the national Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to interrogate people named in a secret, interim CBI report into the matter.

“On the basis of the report, we direct a higher official of CBI to immediately interrogate four to five or more important persons who are involved in the decision-making process to grant a contract for the construction of the Taj heritage corridor project,” it said.

The CBI suspects that officials cleared the controversial project near the 17th-century monument, a world heritage site, in return for bribes.

Supreme Court judges M.B. Shah and A.R. Lakshmanan declined to identify the people named in the report but said the list included “a person who is wielding the authority there.”

The court also ordered the CBI to submit a final report on its probe into the scuppered project, which sparked protests in Agra, by Sept 11, overturning its request for an extension.

The judges offered sweeping powers to officials of the federal agency to speed up their probe.

“It will be open to the investigating officer not only to interrogate the four to five persons but also to verify their assets because it it is alleged that 170 million rupees (3.7 million dollars) were released for the project without proper sanction,” their order said.

The judges said the CBI must act “forthwith, without giving opportunity to these persons named in the report to manoeuvre”.

The court, citing the CBI’s interim report, said some of the documents relating to the halted construction appeared to have been changed by unidentified people to alter their meaning.

The judges ordered the CBI to forward the suspect documents to India’s Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory (CFSL) for their opinion, court officials said.

“The CFSL will give its opinion immediately without taking the plea that similar matters are pending before it,” they said.

The Supreme Court halted the project in July after an outcry, with conservationists equating it with the destruction of ancient statues of Buddha in Afghanistan in 2001. —AFP