Disgraced diplomat Madhuri Gupta alleged before a court on Wednesday that she was being harassed by authorities of Tihar Jail, where she is at present lodged on the charges of supplying secret information to Pakistani intelligence agents.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaveri Baweja directed the Jail Superintendent concerned to appear before the court on August 25 and file a response on her allegations.
"Accused Madhuri Gupta has filed an application alleging harassment at the end of some officials of central jail number 6. The jail superintendent is directed to appear in person and file a report," the court said.
This is the second time in as many months that Gupta has made the same allegation.
In her plea, 53-year-old Gupta claimed that the jail authorities permitted her acquaintances, including a servant, to meet her only at the end of meeting hours and her conversations are also overheard by prison officials.
"An undertrial also verbally abused me at the instance of jail officials. She levelled charges which were not even mentioned in the chargesheet against me," she alleged, in her hand-written application.
Gupta had on July 9 filed a similar application alleging Tihar jail authorities were harassing her and threatening to implicate her in different cases particularly relating to possessing a mobile phone inside the prison.
The court had then refused to pass any order when the jail authorities submitted that they were not indulging in any kind of harassment and were only carrying out routine searches in her ward on the direction of the Delhi high court and the ministry of home affairs.
Meanwhile, the court adjourned the hearing on her bail application, filed for the third time since her arrest on April 22, after being called from Islamabad where she was posted as second secretary in the press and information wing.
The court deferred the hearing as her counsel Joginder Dahiya sought time for putting forth arguments in the matter, saying that the Delhi police had not supplied him all the documents relied upon by them to seek her prosecution under the Official Secrets Act and the IPC.
The Delhi police had filed the chargesheet against the IFS Grade-B officer on July 20.
The probe agency had cited Gupta's purported e-mails to claim that she used to pass on information to Pakistan intelligence agencies through her handler Jamshed -- whom she planned to marry -- and another person named Mubashar Raza Rana.
