SC seeks centre's response to Tata's plea on Radia tapes

SC seeks centre's response to Tata's plea on Radia tapes 

The Supreme Court has asked the centre to respond within 10 days to the petition filed by Tata chief Ratan Tata seeking a direction to the government to probe leakage of audio tapes containing his private conversation with corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and stop their further publication.  

The apex court issued notices to Union Home Secretary G K Pillai, CBI, Income Tax Department and Finance Ministry asking them to file an affidavit on the issue and posted the matter for further hearing on 13^th December.

The court also directed that two magazines - Open and Outlook, which had published the conversations, be made parties to the petition by Tata and issued notices to them.

Appearing for various government departments, Attorney General G E Vahanvati accepted notices on their behalf.

SC pulls up A Raja for showing disrespect to PM on 2G allocation

The Supreme Court on Thursday came down heavily on former telecom Minister A Raja on 2G spectrum scam.  

The Court pulled up Raja for showing disrespect to Prime Minister in a letter to him on 2G spectrum allocation issue.

While hearing Raja’s submission, the Apex Court also questioned why Raja did not listen to law ministry’s suggestions on the issue.

Supreme Court is also slated to hear the other 2G related case regarding Ratan Tata seeking a direction to the government to probe leakage of tapes containing his private conversations with lobbyist Niira Radia, and stop their further publication.

Earlier, the Government handed over audio tapes of conversations of Lobbyist Nirra Radia, on 2G spectrum case, to apex court.

On Wednesday, grilling the government on its 2G spectrum allocation policy, the Supreme Court termed as improper the bypassing of the Prime Minister’s reservation by the Telecom Ministry.

The court further noted that the Prime Minister had made his reservations clear which was not treated with respect.

Govt places recorded tapes in sealed cover before SC

Government on Thursday placed before the Supreme Court in sealed cover recorded tapes containing the conversations between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and others relating to the 2G spectrum allocation case.

While placing the recorded conversation before the bench comprising justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly, Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium said that it is a hard disc drive directly downloaded from the server which contains the conversations.

However, advocate Prashant Bhushan appearing for the NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) said though CBI maintains that there were 5,800 conversations, it has prepared the transcript of only 3,000 such conversations.