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Satya Prakash
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, February 4
The Supreme Court on Monday warned Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar of strict action if it was found that he tried to destroy evidence relating to Saradha chit fund scam case in West Bengal after the CBI said it apprehended destruction of electronic evidence.
“If the Police Commissioner is even remotely trying to destroy evidence, we will come down so heavily on him that he will regret,” said a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta demanded urgent hearing citing apprehension of destruction of evidence. You (SG) show us evidence, it said.
The Bench, however, turned down Mehtas request to take up CBI’s plea against Kumar on Monday itself and instead posted it for hearing on Tuesday.
The Bench, which also included Justice Sanjiv Khanna noted that there was no shred of evidence in the agency’s applications about tampering with evidence.
However, it said it was open for the CBI or any other party to produce any material/evidence on affidavits to show that any West Bengal civil or police official was trying to destroy evidence.
Earlier, seeking urgent hearing of the issue, at the outset Mehta said an “extraordinary situation” had arisen after what happened yesterday in Kolkata. He alleged that CBI officials were arrested by the West Bengal Police when they went to Kumar’s residence for collection of evidence.
He said the residence of CBI Joint Director (East) Pankaj Shrivastav was surrounded by the state police and his family was made hostage and even the CBI office at the CGO complex, Kolkata was under siege.
Mehta said the Kolkata Police chief had not responded to the CBI’s repeated summonses to join the probe and “when our team reached to his residence, they were arrested”. However, on being asked by the CJI he clarified that they were no longer under arrest. But he said FIRs were being registered by the state police against CBI officials on a regular basis.
The CBI has filed two interim applications -- the first seeking a direction to Kolkata Police Commissioner to immediately surrender and refrain from tampering with evidence; and the second demanding initiation of contempt of court proceedings against him for allegedly obstructing probe into a case assigned to it by the top court.
Mehta sought to highlight the fact that top police officials of West Bengal were sitting on a dharna with activists of a political party.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been sitting on a dharna since Sunday evening.
Mehta said CBI officials wanted to approach the court last night itself but it was decided to wait till Monday morning for want of access to official records. “When we drafted the interim applications yesterday, we did not have our records. It was under the siege of police. We got the records today only,” he said.
On behalf of Kumar, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi opposed the CBI plea, terming it a political witch-hunt. He said Kumar was not an accused and the Calcutta High Court had passed an order in his favour.
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