Invoking the Supreme Court’s recent dismissal of documentary material produced in the Sahara-Birla pay-offs case, former CBI chief Ranjit Sinha on Monday sought the court to modify its order directing a probe against him for allegedly attempting to scuttle investigation into the multi-crore coal scam cases.
A Bench of Justices — Madan B. Lokur, Kurian Joseph and A.K. Sikri — had last week constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by the present CBI Director to look into the allegations against Mr. Sinha whom the court found prima facie liable. Senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for Mr. Sinha, made a reference to how the Supreme Court refused to even direct the registration of an FIR into the Sahara-Birla pay-offs case in which top politicians, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were accused of receiving kickbacks from Sahara and Birla companies for favours.
The court had declined to order probe into the pay-offs case after concluding that the documentary evidence, including diary entries, found in raids conducted at the office premises of the two companies were not credible and too flimsy to kick-start a court-ordered investigation.
Logbook entries
In Mr. Sinha’s case, the allegation against him hinged on entries in a visitor’s logbook which was maintained at his official residence to show that he had frequent meetings with the prime accused in the coal scam and other important cases while the investigations were on. An enquiry conducted by the Supreme Court independently through a SIT led by former CBI Special Director had also reported back that there was evidence to show that these meetings were irregular.
Mr. Singh submitted that no investigation was ordered in the other case despite documents and diary entries showing both names and sums of money allegedly paid by the companies to certain individuals. In Mr. Sinha’s case, only names were found in the logbook, yet an investigation was ordered into the allegations.
The Bench, however, refused to entertain his plea, following which Mr. Singh submitted that he intends to file a plea for recall of the order against Mr. Sinha.
Order to CBI
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court directed the CBI to complete its investigation and file charge sheets in pending coal scam cases as expeditiously possible, and in some cases by February 2017.
The Bench advised the CBI against unnecessarily delaying the filing of charge sheets in cases in which the investigation was already complete.
