Hello.
Sometimes it is ok, to be able to have comments in datafiles, and have them sifted away, so they don’t make havoc to whatever it is that processes the data.
The handler below does that, -on a copy of the list passed to it. It is a bit quirky, since I keep the original list around, because I can read the comment from within ScriptDebugger then, should I wish to.
You can of course change the comments to your liking, But I have guessed that the block comment anchors are two, do you choose to use just one, then just repeat it. -And nested block comments aren’t allowed! 
to stripCommentsFromCopy(boxedListInList)
# Copyright © 2015 McUsr http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=43958
-- It strips a the contents of a datafile for comments
script o
property lineComment : {"--", "#"}
property blockComment : {"(*", "*)"}
property l : boxedListInList
property m : item 1 of boxedListInList
end script
set ll to length of o's m
set lclen to (length of o's lineComment)
set inBlockComment to false
set tids to AppleScript's text item delimiters
repeat with i from 1 to ll
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {space, tab}
set probe to text items of item i of o's m
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
set probe to probe as text
if not inBlockComment then
repeat with j from 1 to lclen
if probe starts with item j of o's lineComment then
set item i of o's m to missing value
exit repeat
end if
end repeat
if item i of o's m is not missing value then
if probe starts with item 1 of o's blockComment then
set item i of o's m to missing value
set inBlockComment to true
end if
end if
else if probe starts with item 2 of o's blockComment then
set item i of o's m to missing value
set inBlockComment to false
else
set item i of o's m to missing value
end if
end repeat
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tids
if inBlockComment then error "stripCommentsFromCopy: malformed block comment in paragraph list"
set item 1 of o's l to o's m's text
end stripCommentsFromCopy
# Driver:
set fileName to "/Some/Posix_or/hfs/path"
if fileName starts with "~/" then
set fileName to (POSIX path of (path to home folder)) & text 3 thru -1 of fileName
end if
tell application id "sevs" to set FileFound to exists fileName
if FileFound then
try
set dataDef to paragraphs of (read fileName as «class utf8»)
on error
error "An error occured while reading " & fileName
end try
set toClean to {dataDef}
stripCommentsFromCopy(toClean)
set usableData to item 1 of toClean
else
error "The file: " & fileName & " doesn't exist!"
end if
Sample data:
Edit
I have removed a little snag, if the handler was fed an empty list.