A delegation of Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs met President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday and sought the removal of Tushar Mehta as the Solicitor General of India, alleging that his reported meeting with West Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari raised serious doubts of impropriety. TMC MPs Sukhendu Sekhar Ray and Mahua Moitra also submitted a letter to the President, which said, “This meeting took place at Mehta’s official residence.”
“Such a meeting, between one of the highest serving law officers of India, the solicitor general, who is also appointed as the Special Public Prosecutor for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and an accused person being investigated by the same agency, raises extremely serious doubts of impropriety,” the letter submitted by the MPs on behalf of the TMC stated.
Solicitor General Mehta has denied meeting Adhikari at his official residence. Adhikari, once a Trinamool Congress heavyweight, is an accused in the 2016 Narada tapes case, and Mehta is representing the CBI in the Supreme Court and the Calcutta High Court in the agency’s probe against senior TMC leaders in the matter.
This is a “deeply troubling matter of national importance that raises grave doubts of impropriety in one of India’s highest legal offices - the Office of the Solicitor General of India”, it said.
Earlier, the party’s members of parliament — Derek O’Brien, Ray and Moitra — had also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for removing Mehta and had alleged the meeting between Mehta and Adhikari was in violation of established norms and “reeks of impropriety”. “To make matters worse, this meeting took place subsequent to an equally improper meeting between Adhikari and the Home Minister of India, Amit Shah. Notably, Adhikari is an accused in various criminal cases of cheating, illegal gratification, and bribery etc.”
Such meetings make a total mockery of the criminal justice system and would only serve to destroy the common man’s faith in the judiciary, it said. “We, therefore, have reasons to believe that such a meeting has been organised to influence the outcome of criminal cases where Adhikari is an accused person, using the high offices of the solicitor general. We state that the act of the solicitor general to provide an opportunity of an audience to Suvendu Adhikari is not only indicative of grave impropriety but also raises troubling doubts about his professional integrity,” the TMC alleged.