A bench of justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly sought response to the contempt notices within six weeks.
The apex court also issued notices to two journalists, Upendra Rai and Subodh Jain of Sahara Samay, for allegedly threatening and blackmailing Enforcement Directorate’s Investigating Officer Rajeshwar Singh, who is probing the case.
“Having gone through the records we are prima facie of the view that an attempt has been made to interfere with the investigation conducted by Rajeshwar Singh in what has been described as 2G spectrum scam case and related matters. Therefore, we take suo motu cognizance and issue notices to them,” the bench said.
The SC bench also barred Sahara India news network and its sister concerns from publishing and broadcasting any story or programme relating to Rajeshwar Singh in response to 25 questions sent by Subodh Jain to former.
Jain had sent 25 questions to Singh seeking his reply to them which were personal in nature. The court observed that this was an attempt to blackmail Singh as it was done after Sahara India chief was served with summons by the ED to appear before it in connection with the investigation into the 2G scam.
ED has issued summon to him under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Earlier, the ED had moved the court seeking initiation of contempt of court proceedings against Roy for allegedly interfering in the probe into the 2G spectrum scam.
The petition filed by Mr. Singh alleged that the notice was served to Mr. Roy to appear before it relating to a Rs. 150 crore transactions suspected to be linked to the 2G spectrum scam.