(1) Rule. Mr. Y. N. Ravani, learned Central Government Standing Counsel waives service of notice of rule on behalf of the respondent No.1 Central Bureau of Investigation and Mr. D. C. Sejpal, learned Additional Public Prosecutor waives service of notice of rule on behalf of the respondent No.2 State of Gujarat.

(2) Having regard to the facts of the case and with the consent of the learned advocates for the parties, the matter is taken up for final hearing.

By this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India read with Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Cr.P.C), the petitioners seek the following substantive reliefs :

"[A] Your Lordships may be pleased to issue appropriate writ, order or direction to quash and set aside the impugned order dated 22.09.2008 passed by the learned Special Judge, CBI, Court No.3, at Mirzapur, Ahmedabad in Criminal Miscellaneous Application No.63 of 2008 in so far as it states as follows : "It is however clarified that the dismissal of this application shall not preclude the CBI from carrying out further investigation and submit further report against the accused in accordance with law."

[B] Your Lordships may be pleased to issue appropriate writ, order or direction to the Respondent No. 1 not to re-open the case and/ or to further investigate or to re-investigate the Case No.RC 36(A)/2000-GNR.

[C] Your Lordships may be pleased to issue appropriate writ, order or direction to quash and set aside the impugned notices, being notices dated 10.07.2009 and 15.07.2009 issued by Respondent No. 1 to the Petitioners."

(3) Considering the issue involved in the present case, it may be necessary to refer to the facts of the case in some detail. An offence came to be registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation, Gandhinagar as Case No. RC 36(A)/2000-GNR on 29th December, 2000 against one Shri M. K. Bhada, Commissioner of Central Excise and Customs and seven others for the offences pun- ishable under Section 120B read with Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The allegations in the first information report were inter alia to the effect that the officers of M/s Essar Oil Limited (EOL) hatched a criminal conspiracy with the officers of the Customs and Central Excise and the State Bank of Saurashtra during the year 1999 and submitted false declaration and cheque in, a manner, which caused pecuniary advantage of about Rs.36.23 crores to the EOL and corresponding loss to the Central Government, in the matter of clearance of capital goods imported by the EOL. It appears that during the course of investigation, the relevant documents were collected and concerned witnesses were examined by the Investigating Officer. It was found that in order to get the benefit of the Budget for the financial year 1999-2000, which was scheduled to be placed in the Parliament on 27.02.1999, the officers of the EOL manipulated certain papers and made false declarations in collusion with the officers of the Customs and Central Excise, as the rates of customs duty prevalent before the presentation of the Budget on the machineries and equipments required for setting up refinery by the EOL was nil rate of basic customs duty and 10% countervailing duty and any variation in the basic duty in the Budget would have caused adverse impact on the refinery related import by way of additional duty liability on the goods that were pending for clearance. Since the Union Budget was to be presented in the Parliament on 27.02.1999, no ex-bond clearance was permissible in the normal course on 27.02.1999 in view of special pre-budget restrictions notified by the trade notice commencing from 24.02.1999 upto 02.03.1999. The special period with reference to the Budget was declared by the Commissioner, Central Excise and Customs, Rajkot. During the special period, movement of goods into in- bond and ex-bond with reference to warehousing wa