The Union government has offered to share with the Supreme Court a report detailing the materials and electronic evidence seized during income tax raids on the premises of a Delhi-based meat exporter, Moin Akhtar Qureshi.
This will help the court ascertain if Mr. Qureshi had “dealings” with CBI Director Ranjit Sinha, as alleged by Common Cause, represented by lawyer Prashant Bhushan.
Mr. Bhushan’s petition had led to the > declaration of 218 coal block allocations as illegal.
The government’s offer came on a separate application filed by the NGO alleging that Mr. Sinha had met Mr. Qureshi as many as 90 times in 15 months, going by the visitor register at the CBI Director’s residence.
The application alleged that Mr. Qureshi was under extensive investigation by the Income Tax Director (Investigations). It said the Income Tax Department had prepared an “appraisal report” after the raids, which “goes into details of the illegal operations of Mr. Qureshi and his dealings with various individuals.” It said the report may also contain details of Mr. Qureshi’s “dealings” with the CBI chief.
However, Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi told a three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice R.M. Lodha that the report was not ready and it would take another two weeks.
Chief Justice Lodha told CBI officials present in the court not to take any final decision in the coal scam cases until the matter was heard again on October 17.
