Former Orissa High Court Judge IM Quddusi, who is accused of graft, on Wednesday moved a Delhi court to seek a court-monitored probe into the leak of transcripts of his alleged telephonic conversation in a corruption case.
The case related to help extended to an Uttar Pradesh-based educational trust that had been barred from admitting students in its medical course for two years.
Quddusi’s counsel Vijay Aggarwal told Special Judge Manoj Jain that the transcripts as well as the confidential report on the preliminary inquiry into the case were leaked to the media.
The retired judge also claimed that while the confidential report had not been supplied to the accused, it was in the hands of people outside the investigating agency. He urged the court to monitor case investigations and pass necessary orders for an inquiry as to whether the Central Bureau of Investigation had committed criminal misconduct by leaking documents in the case.
His counsel urged the court to direct for an inquiry as to whether any document or conversations have been tampered with or not. “Such things raise grave suspicion and apprehension of interference of third parties in the investigation,” the counsel told the court.
The counsel pointed out that the CBI is outside the Right to Information Act’s ambit, but still the documents are in possession of outsiders.
The court listed the matter for January 22.
Notably, Quddusi, BP Yadav, Palash Yadav, Bishwanath Agrawala and Ram Dev Saraswat were arrested on September 20, 2017, by the CBI on the charge of helping the educational trust. Sixth accused Bhawana Pandey was arrested next day.
All accused were granted bail in the case.
The agency had registered a case of criminal conspiracy and under the Prevention of Corruption Act against the accused on September 19, 2017, and conducted raids at eight locations in Delhi, Lucknow, and Bhubaneswar.
The CBI FIR said BP Yadav and Palash Yadav were managing the Lucknow-based Prasad Educational Trust, which runs the Prasad Institute of Medical Sciences. The institute is among 46 colleges barred by the Government from admitting medical course students for two years (till 2019) because of substandard facilities and non-fulfilment of criteria.