A Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh functionary, accused in Ajmer blast case, moved a Delhi court seeking registration of an FIR against the Central Bureau of Investigation and Tehelka magazine for making public right-wing activist Swami Aseemanand's confessional statement.
Devendra Gupta, against whom a charge sheet has been filed by the Rajasthan's Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), moved the application before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Bansal, who reserved his order on it till Tuesday.
Gupta alleged that Aseemanand's confessional statement recorded by a Metropolitan Magistrate under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code was leaked by the CBI to Tehelka magazine in violation of law. "The media coverage indicates a well-defined leakage that is authored with a design to insulting the judicial process ..... The leakage of court proceedings opened an additional forum of media trial to prejudice the mind of the court in violation of the rights of the accused in custody," his counsel Anupam S Sharma and Sanjeev Nassiar submitted.
Gupta is at present lodged in Central Jail, Ajmer. In their brief submissions, the counsel told the court that the leakage of Aseemanand's statement had given a handle to neighbouring Pakistan to press for their improper demands. The deliberate leakage was tantamount to commission of offence under various provisions of the IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act.
The complaint sought registration of FIR against a CBI additional superintendent of police, T R Balaji and the owner, publisher and editor of Tehelka magazine.
The Rajasthan ATS has already filed a charge sheet in the blast case in the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ajmer against Devendra Gupta, Lokesh Sharma, Chander Shekhar Lave, and Sandeep Dange and Ramji Kalsangre (both absconding) in the case.
The ATS had arrested Gupta from Ajmer and Chandrashekhar and Lokesh from Madhya Pradesh last year. It later arrested two more suspects - Harshad Bhai Solanki, who was also involved in Best Bakery case of Vadodara and absconding since 2004, and Mukesh Vasani, from Gujarat.
The blast in the premises of the dargah of Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti in 2007 had left three persons dead and 15 others injured. Aseemanand, prime accused in Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid blast case, in his recent confessional statement, had said he and several Sangh activists among others had a direct role in Malegaon, Samjhauta Express, Ajmer and Mecca blasts.
Sources in the investigating agencies had said Aseemanand had given a detailed description of the involvement of the activists and self-styled spiritual leaders in several terror attacks across the country during the last three years. The statement under section 164 of CrPC was recorded in-camera before the magistrate.
