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TOP STORIES May 9, 2008 Tehelka journalist moves High Court over transfer of case Wednesday April 9 2008 00:00 IST PTI NEW DELHI: Anirudh Bahal, former director of Tehelka.Com, a portal that exposed alleged corruption in defence deals during the NDA regime in 2001, moved the Delhi High Court challenging the transfer of a case lodged against him under the Official Secrets Act from a magistrate's court to a Sessions court. Alleging that the Central government in 2006 had deliberately issued a notification directing the High Court Registry to transfer the case from the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) to the court of a special sessions court, Bahal sought quashing of the notification. Issuing a notice to the Home Ministry, the CBI, which had registered the case, and the High Court's administrative Wing, a Division Bench of Justice Vikramjit Sen and Justice P K Bhasin sought their response by April 29. According to CBI, two home ministry officials - Neeraj Kumar, a section officer, and Thomas Mathew, a director, in violation of Official Secrets Act, had illegally revealed informations to Tehlka reporter Samuel Mathew and Bahal. After obtaining informations, these scribes had published several articles in their portal including the role of other countries in Indian "resurgence." Following the portal's expose against the then Defence Minister George Fernandes, the portal and its journalists had to face criminal charges. Some criminal cases for illegally carrying out the sting operation were registered against the journalists besides former Samata Party leader Jaya Jaitley's defamation complaint for publishing an objectionable article linking her with Fernandes.
