No criminality found in Niira Radia tapes: CBI to Supreme Court

No criminality has been found following an investigation into taped conversations between former corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and a range of politicians, industrialists, lawyers, journalists, and government officials, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.Additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for CBI, apprised a bench headed by justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud about a sealed cover report submitted by the agency in 2014 regarding the outcome of the court-ordered probe. The matter was not taken up by the court for an effective hearing all these years.“No criminality has been found during the investigation. A sealed cover report has been submitted to the court and the outcome of the investigation has also been forwarded to the departments concerned,” Bhati submitted before the bench, which also included justices PS Narasimha and Hima Kohli. The law officer added that 14 preliminary enquiries (PEs) were registered by CBI after the court order in 2013. “The report was placed before this court. Nothing was found in those [PEs]”, she submitted. At this point, the court asked CBI to being on record the latest status through a report, and said the matter will be taken up in October.The report was submitted by CBI in connection with a writ petition filed by industrialist Ratan Tata in 2010, demanding a probe into the leak of his audio conversation with Radia, which he said was a violation of his privacy. The NGO, Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), through a separate petition, pressed for a probe into the tapes and demanded that they all be made public. While hearing the two pleas together, the top court ordered a probe in October 2013.On Wednesday, ASG Bhati submitted that nothing survives in Tata’s petition after privacy has been recognised as a fundamental right by the Supreme Court in the nine-judge bench ruling in Puttaswamy case in 2017. She added that CPIL’s petition was a “counterblast” to Tata’s petition, and therefore both can be disposed of in view of the subsequent developments. Senior counsel Sidharth Luthra, appearing for Tata, pointed out that one of the chief prayers in the petition was to stop any further leak of the audio tapes or transcripts of the taped conversations. On his part, advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing CPIL, contended that the top court in 2013 ordered a probe into the taped conversations after noting that the matter involved public importance in the wake of the transcripts of Radia’s conversations that implicated big companies, even members of judiciary. To this, the bench asked Bhushan if anything really survives with respect to the 2010 petition and that the present matter could be wrapped up with liberty to CPIL to move a new petition with a fresh cause of action if it so desires. Bhushan replied that he was not ready with the matter since there was a letter of adjournment moved in the case. The court then deferred the matter to October, asking CBI to put on record its latest status report with respect to investigation carried out by it. In October 2013, the court directed CBI to examine 14 issues that were identified by the agency after examining the transcripts of over 5,800 taped conversations of Radia with a host of people across sectors. These transcripts were originally intercepted by the government between 2008 and 2009 as part of an investigation into tax evasion.Following the court order, CBI registered 14 PEs into the matter to probe possible offences that emerged in conversations between the corporate lobbyist and high-profile individuals and corporates. All PEs stands closed now. In March 2014, CBI submitted its report in sealed covers in the top court. In April that year, the Supreme Court decided to first examine issues pertaining to the right to privacy and people’s right to access information in the public interest. On April 25, 2014, the court directed that the CBI report shall be kept in sealed covers and will not be opened without its permission. The case was not effectively heard after April 2014.