New Delhi, June 2: The Supreme Court today sought the response of the Assam government on IPS officer N. Rajamarthandan's bail plea.

The officer, who headed the state's CID as its senior superintendent of police, was arrested for allegedly forging an RTI application on behalf of an advocate and divulging "confidential" information relating to a pending probe.

A vacation bench of Justices M. Shantanagoudar and Deepak Gupta, while issuing a notice to the state, asked the government to file its response on a plea made by advocates Nithya Ramakrishnan and Shadan Farasat.

The sessions court, Kamrup, on April 19 and Gauhati High Court on May 15 this year, through concurrent rulings, had rejected the officer's bail plea on the ground that his release would be detrimental to the probe of his alleged involvement in the case.

Rajamarthandan was earlier charged by the state police under the Official Secrets Act and various provisions of the IPC, including Section 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) which entails a maximum pu-nishment of up to seven years.

The case arises out of disclosure under the Right to Information Act, 2005, of the SIT progress report in the Silapathar violence.

The president of the Nibbuss, Subodh Biswas, was arrested on March 23 for his alleged role in inciting the attack on the AASU office.

Both Rajamarthandan and Biswas are currently in judicial custody. The state government had set up a four-member special investigation team headed by Rajamarthandan.

According to Rajamar-thandan, as a public information officer of the CID under the RTI Act, he had given a copy of the report to an advocate, Ambika Ray, after the latter moved an RTI application before him. The advocate then filed a writ petition in the high court challenging the arrests and seeking their release, which is now sub-judice.

Gauhati High Court rejected the IPS officer's bail plea on May 16. He was arrested on April 7. In his bail application, Rajamarthandan claimed that he was being implicated for merely "adhering to the spirit of the RTI Act".

The IPS (Central) Association, in a letter addressed to Assam director-general of police Mukesh Sahay, had said, "Rajamarthandan's arrest un-der unusual circumstances has caused dismay among members of the service across the country."

It demanded that the case be handed over to the CBI.

The letter, signed by the association's secretary, P.V. Rama Sastry, said since a senior officer of the state CID was the complainant in the case against Rajamarthandan, principles of natural justice warrant that the investigation be entrusted to the CBI, which will be in a position to take a dispassionate view.