CBI books its own ex-chief A P Singh for favouring Moin Qureshi

Exactly three years back when Millennium Post did two back to back stories in its editions dated February 21 and 22, 2014, on how a former CBI director was possibly collecting money through a tainted meat seller it had shaken up the corridors of power. Three years later the wheels of justice have turned full circle.

In the first time in its history, CBI on Monday carried out searches at the residence of its former chief Amar Pratap Singh after registering an FIR against him for allegedly favouring controversial meat exporter Moin Qureshi.

CBI sources said a case has been registered against Singh, Qureshi, his employee Aditya Sharma, owner of Trimax group of companies Pradeep Koneru and other unknown persons.

They said the agency conducted searches in four cities-- New Delhi, Ghaziabad, Chennai and Hyderabad. Qureshi has been accused of accepting money from several people for securing favours from public servants. The FIR was lodged on a complaint from the Enforcement Directorate, the country's anti-money laundering probe agency.

The premises searched included those of an employee of Qureshi, his company, Singh's residence and that of Pradeep Koneru in Hyderabad. Koneru is also being probed by the CBI in connection with the disproportionate assets case against YSR Congress leader Jagan Mohan Reddy.

Singh, a 1974-batch IPS officer, headed the agency between November 30, 2010, and November 30, 2012.

The CBI has based its FIR on the complaint forwarded by the Enforcement Directorate chief Karnal Singh, who alleged that in the course of investigation in a Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) case against AMQ Group of companies owned by Qureshi, it transpired that the businessman was acting as a middleman for some public servants.

In his letter, the ED chief attached records of Blackberry chat messages exchanged between Singh and Qureshi to allege those cognizable offences were committed by the two in collusion with each other.

ED Assistant Director Arun Kumar, whose complaint was also attached with Singh's letter, alleged that Qureshi took "huge money" from different persons for obtaining undue favours from public servants and politicians holding high offices.

Millennium Post in two hard-hitting reports in February 2014 had exposed how tainted meat exporter Qureshi was holding assets on behalf of a very powerful government official ( a former CBI director no less). Documents seized in multiple raids on the dubious dealer seemed to suggest that Qureshi was acting as a middleman on behalf of the former CBI director and many sensitive cases many accused had paid hefty fines which were traced mostly to Dubai bank accounts.

Again when the meat exporter had quietly fled the country in October/ November 2016, Millennium Post was the only newspaper that dared to ask uncomfortable questions on how India's biggest hawala operator was allowed to get away. Millennium Post in its edition dated November 17, 2016, was the first to break the story on how the ED Director had written to the then CBI director Anil Sinha to register a case against two former CBI directors Amar Pratap Singh and Ranjit Sinha. Curiously, former CBI director Ranjit Sinha's name was missing from Monday's FIR.

Most of what formed the crux of the CBI FIR against its own former director was reported by Millennium Post three years back. We were right all along about this unholy nexus between a shady exporter and the top boss of India's premier investigating agency.