New Delhi :-In an unprecedented order, the Supreme Court on Thursday ordered CBI director Ranjit Sinha to completely keep off the 2G case as it found prima facie “credible” the charges that he had attempted to help the accused in the spectrum scam as well as delay prosecution in the Reliance ADAG, investigation into the Aircel Maxis deal and the Tata Teleservices-Reliance dispute. It is also alleged that Sinha attempted to remove DIG Santosh Rastogi from the investigation team.
According to the report filed by Grover, even though a consolidated affidavit had been prepared by the CBI in the 2G spectrum scam cases against Reliance and the co-accused, Sinha attempted to file a separate affidavit for all cases. In his report, Grover questioned the contents of the affidavit on grounds that it contained “averments contradictory to the stand taken by the prosecution and the statements made by the investigating officer in the 2G case before the trial court”.
During the morning proceedings, the court pulled up CBI Joint Director Ashok Tiwari and some other CBI officers who were present in the court room for “acting like the mouthpiece of the Director”. It asked the officers to leave the court room and “do some work” outside.
The court had earlier been told that CBI officers had asked CBI counsel K K Venugopal not to appear in the case since Sinha’s counsel Vikas Singh “represented the CBI as well as its Director”.
The court said the allegation would amount to tarnishing the reputation of the officer. Bhushan also told the court on affidavit that Rastogi was not the source of information. Taking note of the affidavit, the court said Rastogi stood exonerated. On the CPIL allegation that Sinha tried to delay filing of the chargesheet in the Aircel-Maxis case, Singh said the Director delayed filing the chargesheet only because he was waiting for an opinion by the Attorney General. He also argued that “file notings show that officials of the CBI had said that the evidence in the case was weak, and therefore the Director had decided to wait for the opinion from the office of the AG”.
