New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday agreed to give an urgent hearing to applications moved by the CBI alleging destruction of electronic evidence related to the Saradha chit fund scam case by the Kolkata Police commissioner.
The top court will hear the probe agency’s applications on Tuesday.
The CBI alleged that it has moved the application as an extraordinary situation has arisen in which the top police officials of the West Bengal Police are sitting on a dharna along with a political party in Kolkata.
The applications accusing Kolkata Police chief Rajeev Kumar of destroying evidence related to the case and him of indulging in contempt of court was mentioned by Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta before a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjeev Khanna.
The bench declined the plea of the SG to hear the two applications on Monday in the post-lunch session.
It said during the interregnum it will be open for the solicitor general or any other party to lay before the court any material or evidence to show that any West Bengal authority or police official is planning or trying to destroy evidence related to the case
Rajeev Kumar, the Kolkata police commissioner who is at the centre of the unprecedented face-off between Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and the NDA government, was handed out a sharp warning by the Supreme Court.
“If Kolkata Police Commissioner even remotely thinks of destroying evidence, bring the material before this Court. We will come down so heavily on him that he will regret,” Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said after the Central Bureau of Investigation complained that the police officer had not cooperated with its probe and was suspected to have attempted to destroy evidence.
The judges decided to hear the CBI petition on Tuesday and asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to file an affidavit listing all its points. “The commissioner was served summons four times but he still did not cooperate,” Tushar Mehta told a bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi.