The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought the CBI’s response to a plea for transferring to it the probe into the mysterious death of former Telecom Minister A. Raja’s close aide Sadiq Batcha early this month in Chennai.
A bench of Justices G. S. Singhvi and A. K. Ganguly sought CBI’s reply on the plea made by the Centre for Public Interest litigation (CPIL), a civil society, on whose petition the court had ordered CBI to probe the 2G spectrum allocation scam.
Appearing for CPIL, advocate Prashant Bhushan said Batcha’s death was being probed by Tamil Nadu police and it has not yet been transferred to the CBI.
“Let K. K. Venugopal (senior advocate for the CBI) go through the application. We will take it on April 1,” the bench said.
Batcha was interrogated by the CBI in connection with the 2G Spectrum allocation scam.
Thirty eight-year-old Batcha had died in mysterious circumstances at his home in South Chennai on March 16 and his wife had claimed that he committed suicide “unable to cope with the pressure” of the probe in the case.
Batcha was the Managing Director of Greenhouse Promoters, a firm under the scanner of the CBI as well as the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the spectrum allocation scam.
He was said to have been found hanging in his house in Vannia Teynampet in South Chennai by his wife and his driver.
The CBI and the ED had conducted searches at his official and residential premises in December. He has been called for questioning four times since then.
The possibility of his firms acting as a front for the former minister was being looked into.
