Aircel-Maxis case: SC judge recuses from Swamy's plea

A Supreme Court judge on Wednesday recused herself from hearing a plea of BJP leader Subramanian Swamy seeking to implead himself as a party in a case related to probe into alleged disproportionate assets of an ED officer investigating the Aircel-Maxis deal case.

Swamy said the petition filed by Rajneesh Kapur seeking investigation of assets of ED officer Rajeshwar Singh, in which the top court had on June 5 sought the assistance of Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh, was an attempt to delay the ongoing probe in the Aircel-Maxis case.

A vacation bench of justices S Abdul Nazeer and Indu Malhotra asked Swamy to mention the matter on June 25 before another bench as Justice Malhotra recused herself from hearing in the matter without assigning any reason.

"You mention the matter on next Monday (June 25). The bench will be sitting in different combination at that time," the bench said.

During a brief hearing, Swamy said that the apex court had earlier this year directed for completion of investigation in the Aircel-Maxis deal case within six months.

"This ED officer was protected by the apex court on several occasions. To delay the investigation in the case a writ petition was filed against the investigating officer alleging that he had acquired disproportionate assets," he said.

The BJP leader said that at the behest of some powerful people, the investigation in the case was being delayed and urged the court to make him a party in the writ petition filed against the ED officer.

The court said that this bench cannot hear this matter and asked Swamy to again mention the matter on June 25.

On June 5, the apex court had sought the assistance of ASG Maninder Singh and tagged the writ petition with the pending matter related to the 2G spectrum scam.

The apex court had listed the matter for hearing on July 3.