Hurt by the Enforcement Directorate's decision to remove him as a special prosecutor in the 2G spectrum scam case, senior advocate K K Venugopal today told the Supreme Court that he will not be appearing in future for the agency.
Venugopal, who was recently conferred with Padma Vibhushan, made the statement before a bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu, which mentioned a media report in this regard when the senior advocate was appearing on a different matter.
"There is a report in a newspaper. Is it on account of our order that we passed," the CJI asked Venugopal, referring to its last year's order in which on his submission, the Centre was stopped from repatriating ED officer Rajeshwar Singh, who was in the ED team probing money laundering offences related to the 2G scam, to his parent cadre.
"Yes, it was on account of that order," the 84-year-old lawyer replied and said he has written a letter to the ED after reading the news report that he would not appear in the 2G cases and also inform the apex court's special bench which is seized with the spectrum matters about his decision. The 2G matters are listed on July 27.
When the CJI said "we are sorry, we have embarrassed you," Venugopal replied "I don't think the report was against you".
The senior counsel said that the apex court order was clear that no officer in the CBI or ED investigating the 2G scam would be disturbed without its permission.
He said when there was a decision to repatriate Singh, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, who is one of the petitioner in the 2G case before the apex court, had filed an application citing the order that the permission of the court was must for changing the investigators.
When contacted, Venugopal said till now he has not received any communication from the Enforcement Directorate about his removal.
"I have requested the Director, ED, that if the report is true I will not appear for ED in future," he said.
