Delhi Law Min was hauled up by court for unethical conduct

Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti, who was practising as an advocate before becoming minister, was hauled up by a Delhi court for his "highly objectionable" and "unethical" conduct in a graft case.

A Special CBI Judge had made these observations while cancelling the bail granted earlier to Bharti's client, facing trial in a graft case relating to bank fraud.

Special CBI Judge Poonam Bamba had taken strong exception to the fact that Bharti and his client Pawan Kumar had telephonically contacted one of the prosecution witnesses to extract his opinion on the matter.

"The conduct of Pawan Kumar and his advocate (Bharti) is not only highly objectionable, unethical, but also amounts to tampering with evidence," the judge had observed in the order dated August 26, 2013.

The Delhi High Court had also put a stamp of approval on the trial court's order by dismissing an appeal filed by Kumar in which Bharti had appeared in the matter along with advocate Prashant Bhushan.

The high court, on September 12 last year, had also taken on record the observations made by the special CBI court that the conduct of Kumar and his advocate (Bharti) was "not only highly objectionable, unethical, but also violated one of the conditions subject to which he was admitted on bail, as such, the bail was cancelled and he was taken into custody."

A month later, on October 18, the Supreme Court had also declined to entertain the appeal against high court's order and the special leave petition was dismissed as withdrawn.

The trial court, in its order cancelling Kumar's bail, had also observed that the accused had admitted that he and his counsel Bharti had contacted the witness over phone and had conversation with him in respect to the present case.

Kumar had moved an application seeking court's permission to place on record the audio recording of the conversation while the CBI had filed a plea seeking cancellation of bail granted to Kumar on the ground that he had tried to tamper with the evidence.