Dismiss Quddusi's plea over leakage of phone transcripts: CBI

The CBI on Monday requested a Delhi court to dismiss a plea by retired Orissa High Court Judge I.M. Quddusi, accused of graft in a medical college scam case, seeking court-monitored investigation into leakage of transcripts of his alleged telephonic conversations in the case.

The Central Bureau Of Investigation told Special Judge Manoj Jain that the apprehension of Quddusi is completely misplaced as it is based on news reports.

"It may only be pointed out that the CBI has deliberately not commented upon the veracity of the newspaper reports since consistently, the courts have held newspapers reports to be having no evidentiary value," the CBI said.

"It is prayed that the present application be dismissed with exemplary costs."

The CBI said that that there are numerous sources from which the alleged transcripts can be supplied to media, adding that it was for the media to reply to these allegations and not the CBI.

Quddusi's counsel Vijay Aggarwal told the court the transcripts of the alleged conversations as well as the confidential report of a preliminary inquiry have been leaked to the media.

He requested the court to monitor the investigation of the case and to pass necessary orders regarding conducting of an inquiry into whether criminal misconduct has been committed by the CBI by leaking the documents.

Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan last week filed a complaint against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra in the medical college scam case and requested five senior-most apex court judges, including the four "rebel" judges, to hold an in-house inquiry into the matter.

The case is one of the major reasons for the rift between CJI Misra and the four judges -- Justices J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph -- who criticised him last week at an unprecedented press conference.

Quddusi, B.P. Yadav, Palash Yadav, Bishwanath Agrawala and Ram Dev Saraswat were arrested on September 20, 2017 by the CBI on the charge of helping Lucknow-based Prasad Institute that was barred from admitting medical course students by the Medical Council of India (MCI).

The sixth accused in the case, Bhawana Pandey, was arrested on September 21. All the accused were later granted bail.

The arrests came after the CBI registered a case of criminal conspiracy and under sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act against the accused on September 19 and conducted raids at eight locations in Delhi, Lucknow and Bhubaneswar.

The CBI FIR said B.P. Yadav and Palash Yadav were managing the 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.

It was alleged that the college had bribed some influential people, including Qudussi, to get a favourable order from the apex court which was hearing a case about its future as the college was running without the MCI recognition.

In his complaint last Tuesday, Bhushan mentioned the taped conversations purportedly between Quddusi, Biswanath Agarwala, a middleman, and B.P. Yadav of the Prasad Education Trust.

--IANS

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