SC to hear from public prosecutor today whether Sinha influenced the probe or not
Did Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director Ranjit Sinha try to influence the ongoing 2G trial or not?
Special public prosecutor Anand Grover will give his opinion before the Supreme Court on Friday. The CBI, however, responded to accused and former telecom minister A Raja's plea by submitting an affidavit to the Supreme Court on Thursday, refusing to part with letters and file notings exchanged between former Special Public Prosecutor U U Lalit and Sinha.
dna first broke the story on September 2 that top officials of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) met the CBI chief at least 50 times in 15 months at his official residence – 2, Janpath.
Referring to the dna story, petitioner-NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation(CPIL) brought the issue to the court's notice and sought Sinha's recusal from the probe against Reliance Telecom in the 2G case for his alleged meeting with ADAG officials.
Finding the allegations serious, the bench headed by the Chief Justice had asked the NGO's lawyer Prashant Bhushan to place on record the original diary and also passed an order for disclosing the source, particularly the name of the whistleblower.
However, the lawyer refused to disclose the name of the whistleblower saying it will endanger the latter's life and sought the court to recall its previous order.
The bench, which sought senior advocate Grover's argument before modification of its order, will also hear on Friday the arguments from the counsel for the CBI chief.
Meanwhile, responding to A Raja's plea to supply him with some documents, particularly the letters between Sinha and then prosecutor Lalit, the CBI refused to share this with 2G prime accused A Raja.
"These documents are confidential and meant for internal purposes,'' reads a two-page affidavit, adding that "the records, file notings/comments of various officers of CBI, 2G spectrum case files are confidential records, especially meant for the internal purposes of the agency. Therefore, they cannot be shared with accused persons.''
The CBI filed the affidavit in response to Raja's plea, in which the DMK leader has sought the apex court's order directing the agency that he should be given the documents so that he can prepare his defence.
dna, which had access to a letter written by Lalit, now elevated as a judge of the top court, had, on August 4, reported that the CBI chief wanted to suspend the ongoing trial against Reliance and reopen the case for further investigation.
Finding the allegations against Sinha "serious", the SC has also taken all documents and file notings on the probe against Reliance in its custody.
As reported by dna, Lalit had opposed Sinha's view and said "his view is contradicting the charge sheet filed against Reliance Telecom." In his application, Raja has cited the dna report and CBI chief's explanation on the issue and said on the plea of CPIL, the court, on August 12, had taken the original file into its custody.
He referred to a CBI draft, as reported in media and said "if the CBI is of the view that Clause 8 of UASL guidelines should apply only to a licensee and not to an applicant, the entire prosecution case of cheating is false.
Clause 8 of USAL guidelines states that no single company – either directly or indirectly or through its associates – shall have substantial equity (10 per cent or more) holding in more than one licensee company in the same service area.
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