The Centre on Thursday deposited in the Supreme Court the original tapes of recordings of the conversations between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and others relating to the 2G spectrum allocation.
“Christmas gift”
Before the commencement of the proceedings, Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam handed over the sealed hard disk, server and call records to Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly.
Justice Ganguly told him in a lighter vein that the sealed packet was like a “Christmas gift.”
On Wednesday, the Bench directed the Directorate-General (Investigations), Income-Tax, that the original conversations between Ms. Radia and others recorded in a hard drive or in the form of tapes, compact discs or any other electronic device, along with all phone call records, be put in a sealed cover and submitted, after preparing copies required by the Income-Tax Department and the CBI, for safe custody of the court.
The court's direction on keeping the original recordings in safe custody came in the wake of an apprehension expressed by counsel Prashant Bhushan that the tapes might disappear or would be tampered with.
Keywords: 2G spectrum scam, Niira Radia, Supreme Court, recorded tapes, political scandals
