Apex Court forms SIT to probe ex-CBI director Ranjit Sinha
21 July 2015 6:01 AM IST
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told a Bench headed by Justice M B Lokur, who was monitoring the probe in the coal block allocation scam, that Sharma had agreed to undertake the assignment.
The Bench, comprising Justices Kurian Joseph and A K Sikri, took on record the statement of Rohatgi and posted the matter for hearing on August 10.
Sinha landed in controversy after the visitors’ diary at his residence revealed that he met two top Reliance ADAG officials nearly 50 times. It was also being charged that the visits coincided with Sinha’s alleged attempt to file an affidavit which sought to “defuse” the charges against the company in the 2G scam.
Since his taking over as CBI director in 2012, everything was going well with Sinha till the CPIL in a petition filed before the Apex Court on September 2 claimed that visitors’ entry register at Sinha’s residence was “very disturbing” and contained “explosive material” in 2G spectrum allocation scam against Reliance Telecom.
Not only Reliance, there were allegations that he met several politicians and influential people against whom CBI had registered probe. He was also accused of scuttling the probe in the coal scam. Earlier, the Apex Court had expressed annoyance with Sinha for meetings with several accused in the coal scam at his official residence in the absence of investigating officers. While going through the case, the Apex Court on Monday felt that further inquiry was necessary to ascertain the fairness and impact of his conduct in the coal scam probe.
A Supreme Court bench had sought the CVC’s assistance to ascertain the technique and methodology for conducting such an inquiry on whether Sinha’s meetings had unduly favoured the accused or not.
The Apex Court had earlier suggested Sharma’s name for probe against Sinha and asked the CVC to seek his consent. A Rajasthan cadre officer, Sharma, served for almost two decades in the CBI before retiring in 2009.
Prashant Bhushan, the petitioner in the case, however, had suggested Justice (Retd) Santosh Hegde or IPS (Retd) Prakash Singh’s name to lead the probe team. His suggestions were turned down by the Supreme Court.
On May 14, a three-judge Bench headed by Justice Madan Lokur had agreed to order a probe against Sinha based on a complaint from Bhushan, who produced the visitors’ diary at the ex-CBI chief’s residence to accuse him of scuttling the SC-monitored probe and save the accused.
While going through Sinha’s visitors’ list, it was reportedly revealed that not only officials of Ambanis, other influential people including Moin Qureshi had also visited his residence at least 90 times. The other person who had visited Sinha’s residence was Devendra Darda, son of Congress MP from Yavatmal, Vijay Darda. Vijay was an accused in coal scam along with his brother Rajendra Darda.
Qureshi’s dubious activities and his connection with people in the corridors of power including the former CBI chief were first broken by Millennium Post on February 22, 2014.
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