#CBIvsCBI: None of you deserve a hearing, reprimands Supreme Court
What's the story
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court abruptly deferred the hearing of CBI Director Alok Verma's petition that had challenged the government's decision to strip him of his powers and send him on leave. An incensed bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi deferred the hearing to November 29, furious over an alleged media leak about Verma's response to the inquiries against him. Here are the details.
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None of you deserves a hearing, says CJI Gogoi
"For reasons that need not be recorded, we don't want hearing...None of you deserve a hearing," said CJI Ranjan Gogoi, furious at the leak.
Details
The Wire had allegedly reported the contents of top-secret documents
As soon as the hearing began, the Supreme Court communicated its decision to not hear Verma's petition, and came down strongly on senior advocate Fali Nariman, saying that documents which the court had ordered to be submitted in a sealed cover had been reported by The Wire. However, Nariman, who is representing Verma, said that he was unaware about the leak.
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A surprised Nariman says he's unaware about the leak
"How did this leak come out? We don't know. This is unacceptable. I am also disturbed. Summon the person who did it. I worked the whole night," said the 89-year-old Nariman, surprised at the leak.
Response
What The Wire had to say about the issue
However, The Wire, in its turn, clarified that it had not reported contents of a sealed document. Rather it said that the report in question was based on answers given by Verma to queries raised by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) during its probe against him. It further said that it had not seen the sealed document containing Verma's response to the CVC's final report.
Twitter Post
READ: The Wire's response to the leak allegations
This is to clarify that @thewire_in stories were on Alok Verma’s responses to questions the CVC put to him. These were not in a sealed cover and were not meant for the SC. As for his response to CVC’s final report, handed over to SC in sealed cover, we haven’t seen/reported that. https://t.co/ej7htVwBRJ
— The Wire (@thewire_in) November 20, 2018
Earlier
The CVC had not given Verma a clean chit
Following the CVC's submission of its final report on November 12, the Supreme Court, on Friday, observed that CBI Director Alok Verma had not been given a clean chit in the CVC inquiry into accusations levelled against him by CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana. Asthana had accused Verma of taking a bribe from a Hyderabad-based businessman, Sana Satish, who was under CBI investigation. In turn, Verma had accused Asthana of the same.
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What the Supreme Court said about the CVC report
The Supreme Court had said that the CVC report on Verma was "complimentary on some charges, not-so-complimentary on some charges and very uncomplimentary on some charges". It had asked Verma to file his response on Monday.