NEW DELHI: CBI director Alok Verma on Monday faced a tough time in Supreme Court which sought an explanation from him for not complying with its order for the expeditious probe in Manipur fake encounter cases and not taking action against army and police personnel involved in them.In compliance of its order, the director personally appeared before a bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit and assured the court that probe in 27 cases would be completed by the end of the year and seven chargesheets would be filed by August end. He said that all cases which had been referred to CBI’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) would be dealt with simultaneously and would be completed in a time bound manner.“We are taking these cases very seriously and we are not taking them lightly. Have trust on us. Probe in these cases would be completed at the earliest. Two chargesheets have been filed today and five will be filed by end of August,” the director told the bench.Keeping the director on tenterhook, the bench decided to examine whether his assurance resulted in expeditions probe and whether the agency honours its timeline for filing chargesheet. It asked him to appear before it again on August 20 when it would take stock of the progress in the cases.The apex court, which is hearing a PIL seeking probe into 1,528 alleged extra-judicial killings, had in July last year ordered registration of an FIR in 81 cases. These cases include 32 probed by a Commission of Enquiry, 32 cases investigated by judicial enquiries and high courts, 11 cases in which compensation has been awarded by NHRC and six cases probed by a commission headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice Santosh Hegde. The court had asked the agency to first focus on 41 cases in which inquiry had come to the conclusion that they were fake encounter cases.The top court had set up a SIT comprising CBI officers and had set a deadline of December 31 last year for lodging FIRs. But the agency did not comply with the order and the court had to summon its director.Questioning the Director for the delay, the bench said that in all these cases inquiry was already been conducted by NHRC and other authorities. It said all the evidence and witnesses accounts were available with the SIT and where there was no justification for prolonging the probe.The director, however, said that there was a mechanism for the screening of the final report at seven layers within the agency resulting in delay. The bench, however, noted that the seven layers of scrutiny was there in corruption cases and some of the levels of the screening could be done away with as the fake encounter cases were being probed by DIG-level officer.Verma, thereafter, agreed to reduce the level of screening to two and told the court that he would keep a watch on the progress of the investigation. The Court also asked him why the accused in these cases were not being arrested as they were charged with heinous offence and they could not be allowed to roam around. The director responded that he will “take a call” on the issue.