NEW DELHI: Making it clear that the documents seized during the raids of Sahara and Birla business houses had no evidentiary value, the Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the plea for a court-monitored SIT probe into bribery allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A new bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy noted that the case based on random materials like loose sheets, papers, e-mail print outs is merit less as they are inadmissible materials having no evidentiary value under the law to order registration of FIR and investigation. The new bench was constituted as Prashant Bhushan, lawyer for the Common Cause, had sought recusal of the then Chief Justice of India-designate, Justice J S Khehar, on the ground that his file for elevation for CJI was pending with the executive headed by the Prime Minister.
“In view of the materials placed on record and peculiarity of the facts and circumstances, no case is made out on merits to direct investigation against various political functionaries, officers etc. The interim applications are found to be merit less and are dismissed,” the bench said. The court pointed out that there must be some cogent, reliable and admissible evidence.
“Otherwise the process of law can be abused to achieve ulterior goals,” it said while dismissing the NGO’s plea. Common Cause, an NGO, had filed a fresh affidavit with the Supreme Court in 2013-14 seeking a court monitored SIT probe into the raids on two business houses-- Sahara and Aditya Birla. Documents seized during the raids at these corporate houses had indicated massive pay-offs to various politicians including the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.
During the hearing, the court also referred to the order passed by the Income Tax Settlement Commission in the Sahara group matter and said the commission has also found prima facie that materials recovered from the group were not genuine and fabricated.
Meanwhile, Bhushan argued that there cannot be any other case where there was so much of evidence to order probe. “If this court held that even this is not a fit case to order investigation when such documents have been recovered and persons involved (in allegedly making the entries) have admitted it before the IT department, then I wonder what will be a fit case,” he said. “SC refusing to order an indepth inquiry is a setback to anti corruption campaign and a black mark on apex court’s record,” he later tweeted.