Snoopgate cop asks SC for a CBI?probe

New Delhi: Suspended IAS officer Pradeep Sharma, who has been fighting a legal battle against the Narendra Modi-led Gujarat government, on Saturday filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court urging that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) be told to probe the surveillance of a young woman architect as it was done illegally.

Sharma urged the apex court to take cognisance of audio tapes aired by news portals, saying they contain proof of how the state government had tried to frame him in frivolous cases.

“Take on record the documents and transcripts annexed with the instant application and direct CBI to register a case and conduct a thorough inquiry into the violation of the Telegraph Act, 1885, and other applicable laws, by Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and any other such persons,” he said in his application filed in the Supreme Court.

The suspended IAS officer said in his affidavit he had been victimised by the Gujarat government as he had knowledge of the alleged intimacy shared by Modi with a young lady architect and also because his younger brother, Kuldip Sharma, a senior IPS officer in the state, has unmasked many misdeeds of the Modi government since the Godhra riots.

“The said tapes and transcripts reveal a strong bias and prejudice of the state of Gujarat against him and the state’s intent to somehow implicate him in criminal offences,” he said, adding that “these transcripts now present an ex post facto confirmation of his apprehension”.

Sharma is facing six criminal cases, including a case for alleged irregularity in land allotment to private firms in Kutch district in 2008.

He sought that the probe in these cases be given to the CBI.

Later, talking to several news channels, Sharma said he was the one who introduced Modi to the female architect in 2004.

At that time Sharma was the district collector of Kutch. Later the friendship between the woman and the Chief Minister grew, he alleged.