New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today defended his Law Minister Somnath Bharti in the evidence tampering case saying that he did not commit any unethical conduct.
A Special CBI Judge Poonam Bamba had hauled up Bharti for his "highly objectionable" and "unethical" conduct in the graft case.
The judge had made these observations while cancelling the bail granted earlier to Bharti's client, facing trial in a bank fraud case.
The judge had taken strong exception to the fact that Bharti and his client Pawan Kumar had telephonically contacted one of the prosecution witnesses to extract his opinion on the matter.
"The conduct of Pawan Kumar and his advocate (Bharti) is not only highly objectionable, unethical, but also amounts to tampering with evidence," the judge had observed in the order dated August 26, 2013.
The Delhi High Court had upheld the trial court's order by dismissing an appeal filed by Kumar in which Bharti had appeared in the matter along with advocate Prashant Bhushan.
The high court, on September 12 last year, had also taken on record the observations made by the special CBI court that the conduct of Kumar and his advocate (Bharti) was "not only highly objectionable, unethical, but also violated one of the conditions subject to which he was admitted on bail, as such, the bail was cancelled and he was taken into custody."
A month later, on October 18, the Supreme Court had also declined to entertain the appeal against high court's order and the special leave petition was dismissed as withdrawn.
