Amidst Opposition attack on the government in 2G scam, a fresh petition was moved in the Supreme Court on Tuesday alleging that two Enforcement Directorate offials probing the money trail against several bigwigs were being “harassed and intimidated” at the highest level on a series of complaints sent to top functionaries at the behest of a business house whose owner faced ED summons.
The petition was moved by advocate Prashant Bhushan on behalf of an NGO, Centre for PILs, seeking a direction to the government to produce entire sets of nearly 50 complaints submitted to the vice-president, PM, finance minister and defence minister against the two ED officers probing the 2G case and the direction issued to the Enforcement Director in this regard.
“It is prayed to call for all the files and complaints on the basis of which ministry of finance asked for the comments of Director of Enforcement” against the investigating officials — Rajeshwar Singh and Sharad Chowdhry. Mr Bhushan urged the Supreme Court to take up the matter on Thursday.
Annexing a copy of the finance ministry’s letter to the Enforcement Director issued on July 12, the petition said “it is a very serious matter that an attempt is being made at the highest level of the government, especially at the level of the ministry of finance, to harass and intimidate both the officails investigating the 2G case and scuttle the probe.” The timing of the “inquiry” against the two investigators became more alarming when ED had started issuing “penalty notices” to several companies under scanner as one such notice had already been “slapped for over `7,000-crore penalty on Etisalat DB (Swan) for violating the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act”, it said.