The Supreme Court (SC) has refused to issue interim order in the writ petition filed demanding Finance Secretary Madhu Marasini and Revenue Secretary Krishna Hari Pushkar be barred from duty during the investigation on allegations of budget tampering against former finance minister Janardan Sharma.
Advocate Baburam Aryal and others had moved the Apex Court demanding that the secretaries be barred from duty during the investigation pointing that they can destroy evidence.
A single bench of Justice Kumar Regmi hearing the petition on Friday has refused to issue an interim order demanded by the petitioners pointing that it can't even be imagined that the Finance Ministry has not kept the closed-circuit TV (CCTV) footage safe.
The 11-member parliamentary probe committee has already started investigations into the allegations.
Sharma has been accused of inviting unauthorized persons to the Finance Ministry to change tax rates at the time of finalizing the budget. He has denied the allegations.
He courted another controversy when the Finance Ministry, responding to a right to information (RTI) request seeking closed-circuit TV (CCTV) footage of the night before the budget presentation, said that it does not have CCTV footage of more than 13 days.
Sharma resigned on July 6 to facilitate investigation over the allegations but secretaries Marasini and Pushkar have been reporting for duty.
They are also under investigation as they led the staffers in preparations of the budget and were also present when the unauthorized persons allegedly entered the ministry.
