Cannot close our eyes to some ‘very, very serious matters’ brought to light: SC tells West Bengal govt

The court refused a plea by West Bengal government counsel and senior advocate A.M. Singhvi’s plea to spare the State Chief Secretary and the DGP.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it cannot be expected to close its eyes to “some very, very serious matters” which have come to light in the CBI’s status report on the examination of former Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar in Shillong in connection with multi-crore ponzi scam cases, including the Saradha and Rose Valley scandals.

A three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi is hearing a contempt petition filed by the CBI against the West Bengal Chief Secretary, Director General of Police and Mr. Kumar. The contempt plea stems from a February 3 incident when the West Bengal Police manhandled a CBI team who went to Mr. Kumar’s Kolkata residence to question him in regard to the Saradha scam case. The Supreme Court, while transferring the ponzi scams probe to the CBI from the State Police, had ordered the latter to fully support the central investigative agency to reach the truth in the cases.

However, what began as a contempt case in the apex court has now snowballed into CBI levelling allegations that Mr. Kumar, as the functional head of the West Bengal government-appointed SIT, actively connived with the high-profile accused in the ponzi scams to tamper crucial call data records (CDRs).

Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, for CBI, said the statements made by the contemnors in their affidavits before this court is misleading and demonstrably false.

In what may be seen as opening a new front of offensive against Mr. Kumar and even the West Bengal State establishment, the court asked the CBI to file a separate application listing out the allegations supported by full facts and particulars in the next 10 days.

The court refused a plea by West Bengal government counsel and senior advocate A.M. Singhvi’s plea to spare the State Chief Secretary and the DGP. The Bench said it would hear the application in detail after the contemnors file their responses to the CBI’s application.

“If some very, very serious matters come to light, should we close our eyes to all that? Something sufficiently serious has been brought to our knowledge… We will look into allegations and counter-allegations,” Chief Justice Gogoi addressed Mr. Singhvi.

The court also perused separate affidavits filed by CBI Director Rishi Kumar Shukla, the agency’s Joint Director Pankaj Kumar Srivastava whose Kolkata residence was allegedly gheraoed by the West Bengal Police and finally Tathagat Vardhan, a Deputy Superintendent of Police with the CBI, who was part of the CBI team which was roughed up on February 3.

Mr. Shukla said the Saradha case itself involves the non-refund of over ₹1983.02 crore of a total ₹2459.59 crore collected from lakhs of investors. This is only the principal amount.

The CBI Director said the SIT took 14 months to share CDRs of five mobile numbers of Debjani Mukherjee, one of the promoters/directors of Saradha group, for the period between 2012-2013. The CBI was provided with a blank CD and then later given records for only a limited period. The complete CDRs were finally got from the service provider. It said there were discrepancies in the frequency and number of calls with regard to one of the mobile numbers of Ms. Mukherjee.

In his affidavit, Mr. Srivastava, said the West Bengal Police was not providing “security” to him and his family on the night of February 3 but “laying siege” on them. Mr. Vardhan explained the trauma suffered by the CBI officers, especially women personnel, at the hands of the State Police.