NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Monday once again declined Gujarat cadre IAS officer Pradeep Sharma's plea to travel abroad to meet his family members, who are American citizens.
Declining the plea, a bench of Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai and Justice N.V.Ramana directed the hearing of the petition seeking an independent probe into the CD that allegedly exposes the top political links of the woman who was later snooped on by the Gujarat administration on alleged instructions from the very top.
Saying that the court will hear Sharma's plea by Sharma in the week starting Aug 4, Justice Desai said that that they have yet to go through the material that was given to the court by now Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta in a sealed cover in the last hearing.
The apex Court had earlier restrained Sharma from travelling abroad. It has been alleged that Sharma was staying in Delhi with a concealed identity and trying to get a fake passport to flee the country.
Sharma, who is an 1981 batch Indian Administrative Service officer, has contended that he had an unblemished service record till 2010 when suddenly five cases were slapped on him one after the other. He has contended that he was being targeted by the Gujarat government over the CD row.
The court in the course of earlier hearing Jan 17 was told that state administration started targeting Sharma following an apprehension that he was in the know of the CD that exposed the top political connections of the woman who was later snooped upon.
The court was also told that the second reason was that Sharma's brother Kuldeep Sharma, who happens to be a senior Indian Police Service officer in Gujarat, earned the displeasure of state administration for not carrying out its "illegal orders".