Chief Justice Gogoi said the court was not satisfied with the material placed before it by the CBI against Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar. | Photo Credit: Ranvijay
A Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna ordered the CBI Director to file his affidavit by March 26, the next date of hearing.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to budge on a contempt plea filed by the CBI against West Bengal government and its State police until the agency's Director himself files an affidavit placing on record adequate material to prove that former Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar actively connived to tamper with the call data records (CDRs) to help senior State politicians accused in the multi-crore Saradha and Rose Valley ponzi scams.
A Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna ordered the CBI Director to file his affidavit by March 26, the next date of hearing.
"We are of the view that it is obligatory on the part of the CBI to provide the full facts on the alleged acts of the Police Commissioner to provide false information," the court held in its order.
Chief Justice Gogoi said the court was not satisfied with the material placed before it by the CBI against Mr. Kumar.
It asked why the CBI had waited till February to tell the Supreme Court that Mr. Kumar tampered with the CDRs. "If the Commissioner has done this, it is very serious," Chief Justice Gogoi observed.
The call records were handed over by Mr. Kumar to CBI on June 28, 2018. He was the functional head of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) which probed the ponzi scams before the Supreme Court handed over the investigation to the CBI in May 2014. The agency alleged that the Mr. Kumar-led SIT used both inaction and selective action to shield police and chit fund nexus.
‘What were you doing all this while?’
"All this happened in June 2018. What stopped you [CBI] from coming to the Supreme Court? Why are you coming in February 2019 saying all this? If this has happened in June, what were you doing all this while?" Chief Justice Gogoi asked Mr. Venugopal, who represents the CBI.
Mr. Venugopal said the call records handed over by Mr. Kumar were sent for analysis on July 12, 2018.
"But the service provider, told us that we need to get permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs. We got permission from the Ministry in November," Mr. Venugopal explained the delay.
Further, the top law officer said Mr. Kumar meanwhile failed to respond to repeated summons from the CBI to explain the incorrect CDRs. Mr. Venugopal submitted that Mr. Kumar was summoned twice in October 2017 and once in July 2018. He had never bothered to come. Repeated communications sent to the West Bengal DGP to urge Mr. Kumar to join the investigation were ignored.
"Then was it not your duty to tell us he [Commissioner] is not coming?" Chief Justice Gogoi asked.
'We are not ready to act on such statements'
The to-and-fro started when the Chief Justice asked the CBI whether its allegation of contempt against the West Bengal Chief Secretary, DGP and Mr. Kumar was confined to the incidents that occurred on the evening of February 3 when the agency's officers were allegedly manhandled by the State police.
"Is your contempt limited to February 3 or is it your case that the order of the Supreme Court that the State police should cooperate and work in tandem with the CBI has been systematically breached? What is the precise act on the part of the State functionaries which amounts to contempt?" the CJI asked Mr. Venugopal at the very beginning of the court hearing.
In its order, at the end of the hearing, the court recorded that Mr. Venugopal and Mr. Mehta tried to "convince" it about the allegations of tampering raised against Mr. Kumar. "We are not ready to act on such statements," it observed in the order.
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