By Abdul Bari Masoud
New Delhi: Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader and noted Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan has filed a complaint with the Anti Corruption Branch of Delhi Police on Tuesday for registration of FIR against CBI Director Ranjit Sinha. He has sought a FIR against him for offences under the Indian Penal Code and prevention of corruption act.
In his extensive complaint, Bhushan has accused Sinha of deliberately trying to save certain influential persons from prosecution in the 2G scam, coal scam etc by abusing his position as the CBI Director.
The premier agency has been investigating several important cases like the 2G spectrum allocation scam, coal block allocation scam, Karnataka mining scandal etc. He said now the evidence has surfaced that Sinha was taking several important decisions in these important cases relating to whether a charge sheet should be filed, who should be prosecuted and for what offence, who should be arrested, what should be the line of investigation, how should the CBI conduct its cases in courts etc.
“It has also now come to light that while Mr. Sinha was abusing his authority to save certain persons from prosecution, he was meeting accused/potential accused (or their agents/lawyers) in important cases being investigated by the CBI, repeatedly at his residence without the presence of other CBI officers. The entry register of 2013 and 2014 maintained at the gate of the official residence of the CBI Director Mr. Ranjit Sinha, i.e. 2, Janpath, New Delhi shows that he was having meetings, several of them late at night, at his residence, without any of the investigation officers being present, with several accused persons in prominent cases like 2G scam, coal scam, and with hawala operators like Mr. Moin Qureshi”.
The entry register shows that top officials of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) have met Sinha quite frequently in the last 15 months, by one count, 50 times at his official residence. These two officials appear to be Tony Jesudasan (PR Manager and director in several ADAG companies) and AN Sethuraman (group president of ADAG). The cars in which they arrived at Sinha’s residence are reportedly registered in the name of ADAG. These visits happened contemporaneously with the developments of Sinha attempting to destroy the CBI’s prosecution case against accused Reliance and its 3 officers. The fact that. Sinha met these two individuals of the Reliance ADAG at his residence has been admitted by Sinha in several interviews.
In his compliant, Bhushan has mentioned all the details of ‘misdeeds’ committed by the CBI director that show he has committed various offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act relating to criminal misconduct by a public servant, as well as under Section 217 and 218 of IPC. He also said that the offences of bribery can also be established by a thorough investigation.
“Therefore, I request you to kindly get this matter thoroughly and impartially investigated after registering an FIR. Please note that registration of FIR is mandatory (after the authoritative Supreme Court judgment of 2014) once there are allegations of cognizable offences having being committed. It is important to note that almost all of the offences have been committed in the territory of Delhi”.