<p>A Bench of Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly took a serious view of a letter sent by an employee of Sahara News Network to the officer seeking his response to a set of questions to do a series of news reports against him.<br /><br />“This is clearly an attempt to interfere in the administration of justice…. People should not think that they can take law into their hands. The investigation is already going on in the case having huge magnitude,” the court said.<br /><br />Taking suo motu cognizance in the matter, the court issued contempt notices to Roy, and two journalists Upendra Rai, (editor and new director), Sahara India Media and Subodh Jain, reporter Sahara Samay, asking them to file their replies within six weeks.<br />It also directed the Sahara news channel and its newspapers would not publish any story relating to officer till the pendency of the petition.<br /><br />“No story should be published. Otherwise we are sure somebody would become government’s guest. This is not done. It is unacceptable. They (media) should know where the Laxman Rekha is,” the court said.<br /><br />Senior advocate K K Venugopal, appearing for the ED officer Rajeshwar Singh, submitted that Jain asked him on May 5 to respond to several questions claiming that the reporter had got certain details relating to corruption against Singh allegedly in an attempt to scuttle the probe in the 2G case.<br /><br />‘Crude methods’<br /><br />The reporter used “crude methods” to seek the officer’s written response on 25 questions like who paid the bills of the birthday party of his daughter, who paid the bills of train and air fares to his visits to Mumbai and Lucknow, claiming that his organisation wanted to run a series of news reports against him, the Counsel told the Court.<br />“This is intended to terrorise, humiliate and desist him from continuing his probe in the case,” Venugopal claimed.<br /><br />He further alleged that the attempt on behalf of reporter to “blackmail” the officer came after notices were served to Roy twice first on February 2 and secondly on March 30, seeking his response on alleged investments of Rs 14 Crore and Rs 9.5 Crore made by Sahara Group in S-Tel Ltd which is under the scanner in the 2G probe.<br /><br />Singh, an IPS officer, was making an investigation into the role of a Sahara Group company under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). <br /><br />“It was an attempt to scuttle the investigation by mud slinging. The court had already passed an order taking the monitoring of the probe and clarifying that no attempt should be made to interfere in it,” Venugopal said.<br /><br />Taking the submission of the counsel into account, the court said that there was prima facie material to issue contempt notices to Roy and others.<br /><br /><br /><br /></p>
<p>A Bench of Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly took a serious view of a letter sent by an employee of Sahara News Network to the officer seeking his response to a set of questions to do a series of news reports against him.<br /><br />“This is clearly an attempt to interfere in the administration of justice…. People should not think that they can take law into their hands. The investigation is already going on in the case having huge magnitude,” the court said.<br /><br />Taking suo motu cognizance in the matter, the court issued contempt notices to Roy, and two journalists Upendra Rai, (editor and new director), Sahara India Media and Subodh Jain, reporter Sahara Samay, asking them to file their replies within six weeks.<br />It also directed the Sahara news channel and its newspapers would not publish any story relating to officer till the pendency of the petition.<br /><br />“No story should be published. Otherwise we are sure somebody would become government’s guest. This is not done. It is unacceptable. They (media) should know where the Laxman Rekha is,” the court said.<br /><br />Senior advocate K K Venugopal, appearing for the ED officer Rajeshwar Singh, submitted that Jain asked him on May 5 to respond to several questions claiming that the reporter had got certain details relating to corruption against Singh allegedly in an attempt to scuttle the probe in the 2G case.<br /><br />‘Crude methods’<br /><br />The reporter used “crude methods” to seek the officer’s written response on 25 questions like who paid the bills of the birthday party of his daughter, who paid the bills of train and air fares to his visits to Mumbai and Lucknow, claiming that his organisation wanted to run a series of news reports against him, the Counsel told the Court.<br />“This is intended to terrorise, humiliate and desist him from continuing his probe in the case,” Venugopal claimed.<br /><br />He further alleged that the attempt on behalf of reporter to “blackmail” the officer came after notices were served to Roy twice first on February 2 and secondly on March 30, seeking his response on alleged investments of Rs 14 Crore and Rs 9.5 Crore made by Sahara Group in S-Tel Ltd which is under the scanner in the 2G probe.<br /><br />Singh, an IPS officer, was making an investigation into the role of a Sahara Group company under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). <br /><br />“It was an attempt to scuttle the investigation by mud slinging. The court had already passed an order taking the monitoring of the probe and clarifying that no attempt should be made to interfere in it,” Venugopal said.<br /><br />Taking the submission of the counsel into account, the court said that there was prima facie material to issue contempt notices to Roy and others.<br /><br /><br /><br /></p>
