SC notice to Essar on email leak controversy

NEW DELHI: The Supreme court on Monday agreed to entertain a PIL seeking probe into a controversy arising out of leak of Essar group’s in-house emails purportedly showing favours showered on politicians, bureaucrats and journalists.
The court issued notice to the corporate house, Centre and CBI, asking them to file responses in six weeks to the petition filed by NGO ‘Centre for Public Interest Litigation’ that sought a court-monitored CBI or SIT probe into the controversy.
At the outset, a bench of Justices T S Thakur, Kurian Joseph and R Banumathi asked the petitioner’s counsel Prashant Bhushan to reveal the source of the business group’s in-house communications. It also wanted to know whether any politician or bureaucrat named in the petition misused his position for a quid pro quo with the company.
“They are the people dealing with the group in their official capacity. Is there any relation between the gifts they received and the decisions they took?” the bench asked.
Bhushan said many persons recommended by the politicians and bureaucrats were given jobs in the group companies. He said the information was provided by a former employee of the group. However, he refused to name the source saying it could endanger the whistleblower’s life.
Agreeing to examine the issue, the bench asked the petitioner as to why it had not made those persons a party to the petition despite naming them in the PIL. Referring to the apex court’s verdict in the Hawala case, Bhushan said the court was not required to hear every one before ordering an in-depth probe into it.
The petitioner has named former ministers Beni Prasad Verma, Sriprakash Jaiswal, Congress general secretaries Mohan Prakash and Digvijaya Singh and BJP leaders Nitin Gadkari and Varun Gandhi with whom the group was allegedly in close touch.
It alleged that the leaked communications revealed a high level of political-bureaucratic-corporate nexus where corporate groups used their money power to change public policies, plant questions in Parliament and get access to internal government documents/cabinet papers.
“The petitioner requests this Court to direct a thorough investigation into these disclosures since they might involve high level corruption and sanctity of Parliament which is vital for democracy,” the petition said.
“The communications shows that Essar group has been indulging in regular disguised bribing of politicians and bureaucrats in order to further their business interests and also to obtain confidential information from various ministries. These actions may amount to serious offences under Sections 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and the same need to be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted,” it said.