Delhi Court sends two former SC Court Masters to 7-day police custody

The Court of Metropolitan Magistrate at Patiala House today sent the two former Court Masters of the Supreme Court, allegedly involved in tampering of the Supreme Court’s order in Ericsson’s contempt plea against Anil Ambani, to seven days’ police custody..Read More: Anil Ambani’s personal appearance: Supreme Court sacks court masters for tampering with order.The two former Court officials, Manav Sharma and Tapan Kumar Chakaraborty, were arrested by the Delhi Crime Branch for apparently tampering with the order dated January 7, 2019..Read More: Former SC Court Masters arrested for wrong information in Anil Ambani appearance order.The order was passed by Metropolitan Magistrate Sumeet Anand..The police remand of the accused persons was sought by the Delhi Police to unearth the involvement of other persons in the alleged tampering..Opposing the remand, the counsel for the accused stated that there were no grounds for arrest..It is the case of the accused that they have been “falsely implicated and wrongly arrested” in the case. It was submitted that the incident pertained to January 2019, and the FIR was registered only in March 2019..Since the accused persons were not arrested then, and were fully cooperating with the police investigation, there was no need for their custodial interrogation..The Court was also informed that the job profile of the accused persons did not provide them with any occasion whatsoever to tamper with the record..Furthermore, the accused persons contended that it wasn’t their duty to upload the orders on the Supreme Court website..The orders are uploaded only after the “requisite procedure of checking the orders is conducted by persons concerned”, the accused contended..The Court, however, deemed it appropriate to send the accused persons to seven days of police custody. The order reads,.“Offence alleged is serious in nature. It pertains to the interference of proceeding of the Hon’ble Apex Court. The offence deserves full, free and fair investigation in the interest of justice. Police Custody remand for 7 days of both the accused person i.e. Tapan Kumar Chakraborty and Manav Sharma is allowed.”.The accused persons were represented by Advocate JP Singh..The accused persons will be next produced before the Court on April 15.