New Delhi: Advocate Prashant Bhushan and NGO Centre for Public interest Litigation on Tuesday submitted before the Supreme Court that they are ready to be prosecuted if the information given by them regarding CBI director Ranjit Sinha's alleged misconduct proved to be wrong.
Asking a bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu to order inquiry and take action against the top cop for allegedly meeting various accused of 2G and coal block allocation scam and "interfering" in the probe, they said that they are ready to face the "consequences" if the information provided to the court turns out to be false.
"We would face prosecution. I am saying so without looking at them. They must face consequences. They have forfeited the right to defence on the ground that the information was given to him by someone else," senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for Bhushan and the NGO's secretary Kamini Jaiswal. said.
Countering the submission of Sinha's counsel Vikas Singh that Bhushan must reveal the name of whistleblower who supplied the documents, Dave submitted that the court can take cognisance of such information without knowing the source.
Dave submitted that the information provided against the Director needs to be probed and the court should not insist on disclosure of the whistleblower's name.
Expressing inability to disclose the whistleblower's name, he said, "Trust (of whistleblower) is sacrosanct and if it is broken then nobody would come forward to give information".
Singh, however, insisted that such disclosure is a must before the court proceeds with the matter and alleged that there has been move on the part of Bhushan to destroy the institution of CBI by making false allegations against its Director.
He said that CBI Director, who is demitting office on December 2, never overruled the opinion of its investigating officer and other officers in 2G scam and the trail of money abroad in the scam was probed only on his direction.
Singh said neither the Centre's 2004 notification on whistleblower nor the Supreme Court Rules approves relying on documents in the case without verifying the bonafide of the person providing them.
The arguments remained inconclusive and would resume tomorrow.
Earlier apex court had asked Special Public Prosecutor Anand Grover in 2G scam case to assist the court in the case filed against Sinha and sought his stand on the issue.
Grover in his 15-page note said Sinha's frequent meetings with several accused and their representatives in 2G case is "definitely improper" and whether his conduct amounts to criminal contempt needs to be examined.
He had also urged the court to recall its order on knowing the name of the whistleblower who had leaked the documents including CBI Director's guestlist register to Bhushan, saying it should not insist on the issue.
Grover had said people have a right to know the top cop's conduct as it does not pertain to his personal affairs and no law protects the confidentiality of information in the guestlist register which should be examined by the apex court.
In his note, Grover had said, "While the repeated meetings of the CBI Director and the representatives of the accused in 2G cases, during the investigation and prosecution of the cases, is definitely improper, it will have to be examined whether such acts amount to criminal contempt of court under the Contempt of Courts Act 1971 and they could prejudice, interfere or tend to interfere with the due course of judicial proceedings."
He had further submitted that miscarrage of justice may result if Bhushan is compelled to disclose the identity of the whistleblower and asked the court to recall its September 15 order in which it had asked for the whistleblower's name.
