Nature of ex-judge Quddusi’s plea ‘serious interference’ in probe: CBI

Retired Judge Ishrat Masroor Quddusi. (Express Photo)

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday said that the plea of former Orissa High Court judge I M Quddusi seeking a court-monitored investigation into the leak of transcripts of his purported telephone conversations is “not maintainable”, and that an application “of this nature” causes “serious interference” in the probe.

Quddusi, who is on bail in connection with a medical college graft case, had on January 17 also sought an inquiry on whether any documents or conversations have been tampered with. His application mentioned that there “should not be a media trial”.

Quddusi’s counsel Vijay Aggarwal had stated that the case is based on alleged conversations intercepted by the CBI, which were leaked. The application stated that the CBI’s preliminary enquiry (PE) report was also leaked.
In its reply submitted in the court of Special Judge Manoj Jain on Monday, the CBI stated, “The present plea is not maintainable primarily because the monitoring of the investigation is being sought on conjectures and based on media reports…. The present application has been devise(d) to gain knowledge about the contents of case diary of the present case.”

The agency stated than an “application of this nature —which is based purely on conjectures and newspaper reports — causes serious interference in the investigation”.

Quddusi was arrested last year on charges of graft, along with five others: promoters of the medical college B P Yadav and Palash Yadav; alleged middleman Biswanath Agrawal; alleged hawala operator Ram Dev Saraswat; and Bhawana Pandey, an alleged associated of Quddusi. All six are out on bail. Transcripts of the taped conversations — purportedly held among Quddusi, Agarwala and B P Yadav — were leaked, which had references to alleged payoffs, ostensibly to procure a favourable order.