The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that it will not press for the disclosure of the source behind leaking of the confidential visitor diary at the CBI Director’s residence if the 2G Special Public Prosecutor, who had examined the entire matter on direction by the court, is able to prove that the information contained in the diary was credible.
The 2G prosecutor Anand Grover began his submissions on Wednesday and is expected to make a statement on the credibility of information contained in the diary on Thursday when hearing in the case is expected to resume.
The Bench, headed by Chief Justice Hl Dattu, faced a dilemma on whether to insist on knowing the source behind the diary or allow an application by the 2G case petitioner Centre for Public Interest litigation to recall the order passed by the court on September 15 for disclosing the source in a sealed cover.
Grover who had responded to this question in a report submitted to court said, “Source of information may not necessarily mean a person. It can even be a record. Question of identification of source need not arise at all if the credibility of information gets established.” When he proposed to argue then on the recall application, the Bench said, “Suppose we come to the conclusion that credibility of allegation made or averments made in the application (by CPIl) is doubtful, we will ask for source. But is credibility is not doubtful then argument on recall application may not be necessary.”
Bhushan’s lawyer senior advocate Dushyant Dave informed the Court that the conduct of CBI Director Ranjit Sinha clearly came under cloud as the decisions he took to influence investigations against former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran, and Reliance coincided with entries in visitor diary to suggest that he met officials of the accused companies late night at his residence. Dave even questioned the removal of DIG Santosh Rastogi handling the Maran probe as it was the same officer who got “overruled” by Sinha on proceeding against Maran and eight others.
Sinha spared no sound and fury to prove the allegations against him to be totally false and demanded that the source of information must be disclosed to Court in order to hold someone responsible if ultimately it is proved to be false. He threw barbs on Bhushan alleging that Rastogi possibly could have leaked the information to Bhushan suspecting him to be a mole.