Kejri firmly behind him, Bharti says did no wrong

NEW DELHI: In one of the first controversies to hit the Aam Aadmi Party-led government in Delhi, law minister Somnath Bharti on Tuesday had to defend himself against reports of his indictment by a court last year for trying to influence a witness and tampering with evidence in a bank fraud case.

This blast from Bharti’s past prompted the opposition BJP to demand his removal and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to jump to his defence. The CM said Bharti had just tried to save a junior officer of the State Bank of Mysore whom he was representing in court and “the sting operation that was done is being called tampering of evidence by the judges”.

“It has been proved that he was caught tampering with evidence... Even the judge observed this. I think the people of Delhi demand Somnath Bharti’s resignation and if chief minister Arvind Kejriwal talks about ethics, then he should sack his minister,” Harsh Vardhan, leader of the opposition in the assembly, said.

Bharti countered: “The judgment is absolutely erroneous and it was wrong on the part of the CBI judge to say there was tampering of evidence.”

Taking exception to the fact that Bharti and his client had contacted a prosecution witnesses on the phone, special CBI judge Poonam Bamba had on August 26, 2013 cancelled the client’s bail, saying: “The conduct of (accused) Pawan Kumar and his advocate (Bharti) is not only highly objectionable and unethical but also amounts to tampering with evidence.”

Subsequently, the Delhi high court on September 12 rejected Kumar’s plea against the CBI court order while his plea against the HC order was “dismissed as withdrawn” by Supreme Court on October 18.

Bharti is no stranger to controversy. He had earlier invited criticism for allegedly scolding Delhi law secretary AS Yadav for refusing to organise a meeting of subordinate court judges.

Kejriwal said his party was ready to supply a recording of the conversation between Bharti and the witness to prove no tampering of evidence was done.

But the special court had earlier rejected a similar request by Bharti to place on record a tape of the phone conversation between him and the witness, which he claimed to have had “to elicit the truth from the witness”.

“The accused has ample opportunity to elicit facts/ truth from the witness during the cross-examination before the court,” Bamba had said, declining Bharti’s plea.