Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner NGO Common Cause in the coal block allocation scam, on Monday contended before the Supreme Court that former CBI director Ranjit Sinha had tried to influence the coal scam probe.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner NGO Common Cause in the coal block allocation scam, on Monday contended before the Supreme Court that former CBI director Ranjit Sinha had tried to influence the coal scam probe.
Bhushan said Sinha had met many accused in the scam, including former Union minister Subodh Kant Sahay, MP Vijay Darda and his son Devender at his official residence 2, Janpath several times.
This is evident from the visitors' diary details, Bhushan said.
In September last year, dna, which had accessed the diary details, had exposed Sinha's meeting with the accused in 2G and coal scams and also with hawala operator and the then CBI chief's attempt to derail investigations.
Referring to dna's expose against Sinha in the coal case, Bhushan, in a plea, sought the apex court's order for a thorough investigation by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) against Sinha.
Filing a short note before the bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur, Bhushan alleged that "there were visits by several of the coal scam accused such as the Dardas and Sahay when Sinha was trying to close the cases against them. The Dardas and Sinha have not denied these meetings."
Narrating the sequence of events, Bhushan said from October 7, 2013, to March 2014, Sinha met Dardas several times and finally overruled the decision of his junior officers to prosecute them.
"Both the SP and the investigating officer (IO) had recommended charge sheet in all the three cases against Dardas/Jaiswals, minister of state for coal, coal secretary and even the senior public prosecutor (SPP) had recommended prosecution against Darda....
"...The file was marked to CBI director Sinha. Then, Sinha met Devender Darda four times on 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 8th of February 2014. After these meetings, on February 13, 2014, Sinha had overruled both the DIG's and AD's opinions, saying two out of the three cases need to be closed. He stated that there was no evidence to link the Rs 24.6 crore payment with the allotment of the coal block and this money was paid back with interest," Bhushan submitted, questioning Sinha's reasoning as nowhere in the file the money angle was mentioned and Dardas had fed Sinha about it.
Bhushan submitted that the SPP in the coal scam case, R S Cheema, has disagreed with the decisions of Sinha to file closure reports in several FIRs, despite the fact that evidence of criminal culpability had been found against several companies, influential accused and public servants.
The bench, which rejected the CBI counsel's argument that the entire allegation is meant to build a personal vendetta against Sinha, agreed to examine the issue saying, "We have to take a call. Either, we have to agree with you (CBI) or with him (Bhushan)."
The former CBI chief's counsel Vikas Singh contended that judicial record spoke for itself that "false and malicious" allegations have been levelled against Sinha and it cannot be that "just because he is Prashant Bhushan he can get away with any lie."
Singh, who has moved a plea for perjury case against Bhushan, said he would advance the arguments to counter the charges and for raking up the issue of visitors' diary, but the bench decided to hear his arguments on the next date of hearing.
SC pulls up Gujarat
Taking a serious view on the Gujarat government's failure to co-operate with the CBI in supplying documents for a probe into the two coal scam-related cases, the apex court issued notice to the state chief secretary and sought his explanation for the delay.
"What is the progress in the coal cases in Gujarat? Have they supplied documents to CBI?" the bench said and asked CBI counsel Amrendra Sharan to find out from the officer concerned.
Sharan, later informed the bench that despite repeated requests to the state government and this court's December 8 order, the Gujarat government has failed to provide the documents for Preliminary Enquiry into two cases- Naina and Morga-II coal blocks.
Naini coal block was jointly allocated to the Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation and Pondicherry Industrial Development Corporation and the Morga-II coal block was allocated to Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation.
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