Scrutinise Radia tapes: SC to CBI

The Supreme Court on Friday said the tapped telephonic conversations of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia with politicians, corporate personalities and journalists required to be scrutinised by the CBI.

The Supreme Court on Friday said the tapped telephonic conversations of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia with politicians, corporate personalities and journalists required to be scrutinised by the CBI.

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A bench of Justice GS Singhvi and Justice SJ Mukhopadhaya said it had gone through transcripts of some of the conversations and the same "were not personal and innocuous in nature." It, however, did not pass any order as additional solicitor general Haren Rawal, who appears for the CBI, was not present in the court to respond to its query on the officers who could be deputed to scrutinise the transcripts.

"We have gone through some of the conversations. Some of them are innocuous but others are not. It needs to be scrutinised. It cannot be done by us. Even we shuffle through, it would take hours," the court said. It added the voluminous transcripts needed "to be scrutinised to find out element of criminality in them."

Since the ASG wasn't present, the bench posted the matter for further hearing on February 13. The court expressed its displeasure over Rawal's non-appearance.

The bench, during the hearing, made it clear that scrutiny would be limited to those conversations which pertain to criminal element and relating to interest of justice. The clarification came when counsel appearing for former Tata chief Ratan Tata, said private conversations should be excluded from scrutiny.