Saradha chit fund: SC seeks reply from Vodafone, Airtel on CBI's plea alleging non-cooperation
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday sought reply form Vodafone and Airtel on a plea by the CBI alleging that they were not cooperating with the investigation in the Saradha chit fund case.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi listed the agency's plea on April 8 after the mobile service providers denied the allegations.
A bench also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna was told by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for the CBI that there was complete lawlessness and anarchy in West Bengal.
He said recently police tried to arrest a custom officer for checking the baggage of wife of a TMC leader at the international airport in Kolkata.
He said the complete incident was recorded in the CCTV.
The agency had recently filed a status report relating to the interrogation of the then Kolkata Police commissioner Rajeev Kumar in connection with the scam.
The apex court had on March 26 termed as "very very serious" the revelations made by the CBI in its status report relating to interrogation of Kumar.
The top court had said that it cannot "close its eyes" if some "very very serious facts" were disclosed to it and directed the agency to file an application seeking appropriate relief against Kumar, who had earlier headed the state SIT to probe the chit fund scam.
The top court had refused to drop the contempt proceedings against the West Bengal DGP, the chief secretary and Kumar.
It was hearing CBI's contempt application against various senior officials of the West Bengal government on the ground of non-cooperation in its probe and alleged tampering of evidence, including call data records (CDRs) of key accused and Sardha group CMD Sudipta Sen and Debjani Mukherjee.
The court, which had earlier directed the CBI director to file an affidavit giving details about the alleged contempt committed by West Bengal cops and others in the case, had perused the reply of the CBI chief and the fresh status report, pertaining to quizzing of Kumar.
The agency had earlier alleged non-cooperation on the West Bengal Police for providing incomplete information and tampering with details to the probe agency.
The apex court had said that the allegations made by the CBI were serious enough and it was an "obligation" on part of the agency to disclose full details of the alleged contempt committed by the then police commissioner.
It had questioned the CBI for the delay in moving the apex court when the agency allegedly noticed the tampering of electronic evidence in June 2018.
The probe agency came out with a contempt petition after the February 3 incident in which the CBI sleuths, who had gone to probe Kumar at his residence, were taken into custody and manhandled by the West Bengal Police.
Though the apex court had taken note of the February 3 incident in which the top police officers of the state police allegedly sat with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on dharna, it was annoyed as to why the CBI did not bring to its notice the tampering of the CDRs when it happened in June 2018.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
