The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to Unitech managing director Sanjay Chandra to show cause in two weeks as to why his bail should not be cancelled.
A Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhaya issued the notice after the CBI, in an application, sought the cancellation of his bail on the ground that an inquiry had confirmed that he tried to sabotage the trial in collusion with public prosecutor A.K. Singh. The CBI application said a preliminary inquiry was registered on February 6 on the basis of a recorded conversation between Mr. Chandra and Mr. Singh — then representing the CBI — who advised the Unitech MD about crucial witnesses, and thereby compromised the prosecution’s strategy.
The inquiry suggested that the conversation took place between August 16 and 25, 2012, when the examination of a key witness was on, and contained direct references to three witnesses having a bearing on the defence of the accused.
According to the CBI, both Mr. Chandra and Mr. Singh refused to provide voice samples for verification even as witnesses identified the voices in the recording as theirs. The Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) in Delhi, the CBI said, “confirmed that the recorded conversation has neither been tampered with nor has any editing been done.”
The CFSL report felt that the conversation was recorded in a “face-to-face” setting. The Supreme Court, the CBI pointed out, had given it the liberty to seek the cancellation of bail if the accused directly or indirectly made any inducement, threat or promise to any person acquainted with the facts of the case.
Requesting that Mr. Chandra be sent back to jail till the end of the trial, the CBI said there was “a clear and direct” attempt to influence the trial.
“It is apparent the freedom granted to the accused by means of enlargement from custody has been misused by him and that allowing him to continue unabated will be detrimental to the conduct of this trial and to the greater public interest,” the CBI reasoned.
