The Hindu : National : Jain panel witness plea for probe into phone talk rejected

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Tuesday, Oct 30, 2007
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Jain panel witness plea for probe into phone talk rejected

Legal Correspondent

We will not allow this court to be used for political vendetta: CJI

Bhardwaj-journalist conversation suggests conspiracy against witness: counsel
Go to police seeking investigation: court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain a special leave petition (SLP) seeking a probe into an alleged conversation between Union Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj and a journalist with regard to the Jain Commission that went into the conspiracy angle in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The SLP was filed by Ramesh Dalal, a key witness before the Commission, against a Delhi High Court order, which rejected his plea for ordering an investigation into the whole episode, on the ground that he did not have the locus standi to file a petition.

Senior counsel Shanthi Bhushan, reading out the extract of the conversation between Mr. Bhardwaj and journalist Rajinder Jain, said it suggested that there was a conspiracy against the petitioner as a witness. The court should summon the audio cassette containing the conversation and send it for forensic examination. Rajinder Jain, who placed the cassette before the Commission in January 1996, was later murdered and the police were yet to solve the case, counsel said. Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan, who was on a Bench along with Justice R.V. Raveendran, told counsel: “We will not allow this court to be used for political vendetta and convert this court as an investigative forum. We will not issue any direction particularly when the incident was in 1996. You may go to the police station seeking investigation of the matter.”

Justice Raveendran told Mr. Bhushan, “It seems any prayer can be made anywhere. What is all this?”

After the dismissal of the SLP, counsel said, “We will file FIR in a police station and if no action was taken, we will come again.”

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