The Supreme Court on Friday asked telecom operators Vodafone and Airtel to respond to a petition issued by the Central Bureau of Investigation that claimed that they were not cooperating with the investigation in the Saradha chit fund case, PTI reported.
Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi scheduled the next hearing for April 8 after mobile service providers refuted the agency’s allegations that they had not shared the call detail records of Saradha Group directors Sudipta Sen and Debjani Mukherjee, LiveLaw reported.
Vodafone’s counsel and senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi said everything has already been handed over.
Appearing for the CBI, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said there is a “state of absolute anarchy” and lawlessness in West Bengal. He further said that the West Bengal Police had tried to arrest a custom officer for examining the baggage of a Trinamool Congress leader’s wife at the Kolkata airport and that the incident was caught on the closed-circuit television cameras.
Last week, Rujira Banerjee, wife of Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee was caught at the Kolkata airport for allegedly carrying gold in her baggage. Abhishek Banerjee is West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew.
Meanwhile, West Bengal’s representative Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that Mehta should abstain from “feeding the media” in the guise of making submissions.
On March 26, the Supreme Court had said the CBI’s revelations about the case were “very very serious”. The agency had submitted a new report on its interrogation of Rajeev Kumar, who was the Kolkata police commissioner and had headed the state Special Investigation Team inquiring into the scam. The bench had asked the CBI to file an application within 10 days seeking appropriate relief against Kumar.
The CBI had filed a contempt petition in the Supreme Court alleging that Kumar and the West Bengal government did not cooperate with the investigation into the Saradha chit fund scam.
The West Bengal government and police had also rejected allegations made by the CBI that they had obstructed the inquiry into the chit fund scam. The West Bengal Police claimed the CBI had forcibly tried to enter Rajeev Kumar’s official residence on February 3 without valid papers.
The CBI had interrogated Kumar in connection with the Saradha chit fund scam earlier this month. The CBI claimed that Kumar was absconding when it issued repeated summons to him in the case last month. The agency also alleged that the Kolkata Police had prevented its officials from entering Kumar’s residence on February 3.
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