Radia tapes: Rights group to oppose Tata’s plea against publication

NEW DELHI - The Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), which is seeking the apex court’s monitoring of the 2G spectrum probe, Saturday said that it will oppose Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata’s plea seeking to restrain media from publishing transcripts of corporate lobbyist Nira Radia’s tapped conversations.

Senior counsel Prashant Bhushan said that CPIL will file an application seeking to make public entire conversation in Radia tapes. The intervention application will be filed on Monday when the case comes up for hearing before the apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly.

Tata has moved the Supreme Court seeking to restrain the media from publishing the transcripts of the Radia tapes, arguing that publication of these tapes would hurt the business interest of the Tata group of companies and also that of investors in these companies.

However, Prashant Bhushan had contended that the entire tapes were concerning business transactions relating to allocation of licences for 2G spectrum.

The court has reserved its verdict on CPIL’s petition seeking the court monitoring of the probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the scam.