Supreme Court dismisses suspended Gujarat IAS Pradeep Sharma

The Supreme Court today rejected suspended IAS officer Pradeep Sharma's plea to transfer probe of cases against him from Gujarat Police to CBI, saying there is no merit in his contention that state administration is biased against him. A bench headed by Ranjana Prakash Desai aslo turned down his plea for conducting probe against state government for putting him and a lady under surviallance in snoopgate controversy.

"We are of the opinion that no case for transfer of criminal cases to CBI is made out. We have to dismiss the petition," the bench, also comprising Justice N V Ramana said. "We are also of considered opinion that another petition (in which snooping issue is raised) deserves to be dismissed," the bench said. While dismissing the plea to transfer criminal cases to CBI, the bench made it clear that it was not expressing any opinion on the merits of the cases.

The IAS officer is facing five criminal cases including his alleged involvement in land scam registered against him since 2008 in Rajkot area. He approached the apex court seeking transfer of cases against him to CBI. The bench had yesterday reserved its order on his transfer plea after hearing his contention but did not allow him to raise the snoopgate controversy. It had barred Sharma's counsel to raise the controversy and asked him to confine his arguments only to the point on how the probe done by state police against him is biased.

Advocate Sunil Farnandes, appearing for Sharma, had submitted that his client was being targeted by the state government because his elder brother, a senior Gujarat cadre IPS officer, did not toe the line of state government in many cases. The state government refuted all the allegations leveled by Sharma and said that he was himself under surveillance because of various alleged illegal financial transactions.