2G scam: Supreme Court issues contempt notice to Sahara chief, journalists

The Supreme Court today found prima facie ground for initiating suo motu contempt proceedings against Sahara Group Chief Subrata Roy for allegedly interfering with the probe in the second-generation mobile telephony spectrum case, warning that anybody crossing the "lakshman rekha" will become "state guest".

The apex court said there was a prima facie case against Roy and two journalists -- Upendra Rai and Subodh Jain --of Sahara India News Network and directed them to respond to the notices within six weeks.

The bench took serious note of the fact that after summons were issued to the CMD of Sahara group under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act from February 2 onwards, "crude methods" were adopted to terrorise, intimidate and blackmail Enforcement Directorate's (ED) assistant director Rajeshwar Singh, who is the investigating officer in the 2G spectrum case.

"Having gone through the records we are prima facie of the view that an attempt has been made to interfere with the investigation conducted by Rajeshwar Singh in what has been described as 2G spectrum scam case and related matters. Therefore, we take suo motu cognisance and issue notices to them," a bench of Justice GS Singhvi and Justice AK Ganguly said.

The bench also banned Sahara India News Network and its sister concerns from publishing and broadcasting any story or programme relating to Singh.

"No story should be published. If it happens somebody will become government guest. This should not happen. This is unacceptable. They should know what the lakshman rekha is," the bench said.

The bench was anguished that after summons were issued asking Roy to appear before the ED with documents relating to some transactions including to Chennai-based S-Tel which has come under the scanner of CBI on the issue of national security, Rai and Jain became active in interfering with the course of investigation.

Singh, who filed the petition in his personal capacity, said that Jain sent him 25 questions relating to him and his families assets, contacts and others and threatened to start a campaign against him by publishing and broadcasting series of stories.

The bench took strong exception to the letters written to Singh by Jain making personal insinuations when the probe was continuing.

"It is ridiculous that personal life of Singh has been tried to be sullied after notice (for summons) was issued to the Sahara's CMD. You (Jain) planned to do series of stories based on documents in your possession after summons were issued to your CMD.

"Nexus is more than apparent," the bench said and also noted that "there appears to be an attempt to offer bribe to an officer".

The bench gave a strong warning that while the matter was pending before it and the special court and was still being investigated it would like to mention that "people should not take law in their hand".

"Some people are putting questions to investigating officer to do a series of stories. It is nothing but a clear-cut threat to the investigating officer when the investigations are on. Nobody needs to read in between the lines," the bench said.

"This is undoubtedly a strong prima facie case where there is an attempt to interfere with the process of investigation. If somebody comes out with threat, it amounts to interference with the investigation," it said.

The bench recalled that from the very beginning it has been saying that nobody including the media should try to influence the investigations.

A specific order was passed that CBI, ED and IT should go ahead with the probe without being influenced by anyone, however high and mighty and any attempt to cause hindrance to the probe would be dealt sternly, it said.

"CBI and ED officials and their team should not be pressurised," the bench said while disapproving the conduct of the scribes.

"This is in a way crime and offence when investigation is being done and proceedings are being taking place in trial court," the bench said.

Senior advocate KK Venugopal, who argued on behalf of ED, and Singh brought to the notice of the bench about a "scurrilous" letter written by Jain to the investigating officer.

He said though the contempt petition should have been vetted by the attorney general in normal case he was seeking suo motu notice in view of the seriousness of the issue.

It was alleged that Roy was avoiding the ED summons on health ground and later through the scribes tried to blackmail Singh, who comes from a good family background and close members of his family are bureaucrats in various government department. His father and sister have received gallantry awards in police service.

Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra and advocate Keshav Mohan said a response would be filed after verifying the entire facts.

The petition filed by Singh alleged that the notice was served to Roy to appear before it relating to a Rs150 crore transaction suspected to be linked to the 2G spectrum scam. Meanwhile, Sahara group in a statement denied the charges and said that there was no no wrong doing  on its part.

"We have absolutely no connection with swan in 2G, etc. at all. Media reports say we have Rs150 cröre investment with swan, whereas the truth is that we don’t have even Rs1.50 investment. These allegations are totally concocted, baseless and with malafide intention," it said further.