Senior advocate K K Venugopal, appearing for the CBI, contended that the Centre cannot dictate what the probe agency should do as it is an autonomous body.
"The CBI is autonomous of government and fully independent body. No one can put words in our mouth on what we are going to do," Venugopal said disapproving of the Centre's stand on CBI in connection to the finance ministry's note to the Prime Minister's Office submitted to the apex court.
Janata party leader Subramanian Swamy had submitted the note as part of fresh documents last week while pleading for a CBI probe into the alleged role of Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum allocation issue when he was the finance minister.
The government had last week submitted that the CBI would naturally study the note filed by Swamy and would mention its views in its status report in the Supreme Court.
The agency further said there is no need to look into the document as it was part of the voluminous material of over 500 pages which was considered by it.
Venugopal, who appeared to be agitated, was then calmed down by a bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly, which said it got the answer from the CBI.
"You are saying that what has been put in Centre's reply is not what CBI is going to do," the bench said, adding, "we got answer from the CBI that it won't go by what the Centre has said.