NEW DELHI: Special Public Prosecutor Rohini Salian has named a Superintendent of Police of the National Investigation Agency alleging that he had told her, on behalf of “higher ups”, to go slow against the Malegaon blast accused, months after she stoked a row by claiming she was pressurised in the case.
Salian gave a written affidavit at the Bombay High Court, in response to a Criminal Writ Petition filed by Sanjay Likhe Patil, naming SP Suhas Warke. In her affidavit, which forms a part of a PIL filed by Patil in the Supreme court, Salian alleged “...I am disclosing the name of the NIA officer who had tried to interfere with the delivery of administration of justice, as a messenger. His name is Shri Subas Warke, SP NIA, Mumbai Branch.”
Reiterating her earlier allegations, she claimed in the affidavit that the same officer said that there were instructions from “higher ups, that someone else will appear instead of me and in the said case (Malegaon 2008)”. Salian had to give the affidavit as the Bombay High Court was hearing a criminal petition filed by Patil against the NIA. However, as no hearing took place in last three months, Patil moved a PIL in the Supreme Court requesting that the petition be clubbed with an earlier petition filed by activist Harsh Mandar.
Suhas Mushukar Warke is an IPS officer of the 2000 batch from Maharashtra cadre and has been on central deputation with the NIA since December 2012. NIA Director General Sharad Kumar said a counter-affidavit had already been filed in the Supreme Court. “We will not like to comment any further as the matter is sub-judice,” he said. In his PIL, the appellant said the petition is made bonafide and in the interest of justice.
The petitioner requested permission for impleadment of the applicant as respondent along with the PIL filed by Mandar. “In alternative, this court may direct the (Bombay) High Court to hear the contempt petition of July 2015 expeditiously and pass appropriate orders thereupon as per the law,” it said.
Salian, had said in her interviews in June, that “an NIA officer called me up and said he wanted to meet me. He then met me some time last year and asked me to go soft on the accused in this case (of 2008).”