The Supreme Court today took strong exception to suspended Gujarat IAS officer Pradeep Sharma making more insinuations relating to Narendra Modi's personal life instead of deleting them from his petition for transferring criminal cases outside the state.
The apex court, which directed him to clearly comply with its May 12, 2011 order, said the amended petition should have the tenor of its direction and he should delete the statements casting personal allegations on Modi. "You added much more instead of deleting. Your amendment should be in tenor with the order of this court. It cannot be like this," a bench comprising justices Ranjana Prakash Desai and N V Ramana said, while taking strong objection to Sharma's amended petition in which he mentioned the incidents of alleged snooping purportedly done at the behest of Amit Shah, the former home minister of Gujarat and Modi's close aide. "The allegations of personal nature must have to go," the bench said and added that "you (Sharma) are bound by your statement and undertaking given to this court".
The bench brushed aside the arguments of Sharma's counsel that when the May 12, 2011 order was passed there was no whisper of statement about the father asking the authorities in Gujarat to keep her daughter under survelliance. The bench, which directed Sharma to place by August 12 the amended petition containing averments in tabular form to show that he has deleted the objectionable paragraphs, said he cannot raise the issue of alleged survelliance done on him and the woman for supporting his plea for transfer of five criminal cases outside Gujarat. "Today that is not the issue. Today we will go by your statement of May 12, 2011. What made you to make those statements (about survelliance). You cannot wriggle out of your statement recorded in the order. You have to comply by that statement.
"We do not understand the propriety for which you are bringing these allegations. For what purpose you are bringing the statements of survelliance we do not know," the bench observed while disapproving the action of filing amendment petition by adding controversial issues. "You have no reason to bring such statements. We will have to go on with the hearing as per the statements recorded in our order," the bench said.
During the hearing, the bench said it was mainly concerned with the issue "whether Sharma has complied with statement made before the court or not" and later at relevant time it would consider other things including the allegation of suppression of facts by state government as alleged by him.
Gujarat Government through Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and advocate Devang Vyas said it was ready with the matter. The apex court on Monday had directed Sharma to file compliance report of its order passed in 2011 directing him to delete portion of his petition relating to Modi's personal life. The bench had said there should not be any disrespect to court's order and directed both Sharma and Gujarat government to file compliance reports by August 6.
The apex court had on May 12, 2011 taken strong exception to the submissions of Sharma aimed at tarnishing the image of Modi and directed him to delete those paragraphs from the petition. The IAS officer is facing five criminal cases including his alleged involvement in land scam registered against him since 2008 in Rajkot area. He approached the apex court seeking transfer of cases against him to CBI.
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