The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) under a new chief will, on the basis of a Supreme Court order, investigate and, probably prosecute, its former director for prima facie abusing his authority while in office.
A three-judge Bench led by Justices Madan B. Lokur, Kurian Joseph and A.K. Sikri on Monday asked CBI chief Alok Verma, who took office only last week, to form a Special Investigation Team (SIT), which he will personally head, to probe the role played by former CBI director Ranjit Sinha to “scuttle enquiries, investigations and prosecutions being carried out by the CBI in coal block allocation and other important cases.”
Logbook entries
The order came on the basis of revelations made by NGO Common Cause, represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan. It had accessed the visitors’ log maintained at Mr. Sinha’s official residence when he headed the agency. The log showed frequent and unofficial meetings held by Mr. Sinha at home with the accused in the multi-crore coal scam cases in the absence of investigating officers.
‘Probe abuse of office by former CBI chief’
The court said a “change of guard” at the CBI’s helm does away with the need to hand over the probe to an outside agency. It expressed its hope that the new CBI chief would conduct the investigation with “due earnestness.”
“We have considered the issue whether an outside body of investigators should be appointed as the Special Investigating Team. However, in our considered opinion, since there has been a change of guard in the CBI, we would continue to repose our faith in the impartiality of the CBI to look into the report prepared by Mr. M.L. Sharma and other relevant documents and conduct an investigation [as a Special Investigating Team] into the abuse of authority prima facie committed by Shri Ranjit Sinha,” Justice Lokur observed in a four-page order.
The court directed the SIT under Mr. Verma to take the assistance of two CBI officers nominated by him and with due intimation to the court.
The CBI director was directed to take the Chief Vigilance Commissioner into confidence in respect of the investigations and also seek the legal aid of senior advocate R.S. Cheema, who is the Special Public Prosecutor in the coal block allocation cases.
“We make it clear that we have not expressed any opinion on the merits of the allegations made by the petitioner [Common Cause] or make any comment on the contents of the report prepared by Mr. M.L. Sharma and his team except to say that a prima facie case has definitely been made out for investigation into the abuse of authority by Mr. Ranjit Sinha,” the Supreme Court observed.
In an earlier order on May 14, 2015, the Supreme Court had held that “it was completely inappropriate for Mr. Ranjit Sinha to have met persons accused in the coal block allocation cases without the investigating officer being present or without the investigating team being present.”
The court was of the opinion that it was necessary to enquire whether any one or more such meetings that Mr. Sinha had with the accused persons had any impact on the investigations and subsequent charge sheets or closure reports filed by the CBI.
