The Supreme Court on Wednesday said certain aspects of the tapped conversations of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia with corporate executives, pertaining to the 2G spectrum allocation scam case, were “uncomfortable” and agreed with the CBI’s demand that a probe was required into them to ascertain the extent of criminality.
“The CBI has drawn several conclusions and tentative inferences highlighting many things in the transcripts. Many things are uncomfortable in it... Some of the items highlighted will become the subject matter of investigation. We will direct a thorough investigation into all these issues. As and when the matter will arise, this court will order a CBI probe,” said a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and V. Gopala Gowda after perusing the report and transcripts prepared by the special investigation team constituted by it earlier.
The bench was informed by the CBI that there are four cases which the agency can probe but in two cases it did not have jurisdiction and the concerned states will have to look into the investigation aspect. The bench said it will pass an order after hearing the stand of the Centre whether a CBI probe can be extended to those matters falling in the jurisdiction of the states.
The court also questioned the delay in taking action on the leakage of the tapped conversations. “Why did the concerned agency (I-T department) not act on the leaked conversations?” the bench said.
The six-member special team placed before the bench in a sealed cover its analysis of the conversations.