Supreme Court to hear plea against CBI director Ranjit Sinha today; what's CBI chief's defence?

The Supreme Court (SC) will hear the plea against CBI director Ranjit Sinha on Monday (today) for his alleged meetings with the accused in high-profile cases like 2G, coal scam and others.

The prominent question in the mind of everyone is who maintained this diary at Sinha’s residence. Sinha has already called the diary dubious and says it was not maintained at his instructions.

Sinha admits that he met several people mentioned in the diary, but it is dubious because it doesn’t include many names of the people who visited him.

Prashant Bhushan will submit the 2, Janpath, diary in a sealed cover on Monday. Top sources disclosed that the diary to be submitted to the Supreme Court was maintained at the gate of Sinha’s residence.

During 2013-14, ITBP and CBI officials on gate duty were Rajkumar, Khyali Ram, Unni Krishanan, Subhash, Vinod Singh Negi and Vishnu Dev Safi (all from ITBP), Sanjay Kumar Mehta, Brij Mohan, Harish Singh Rana and Raghubir Singh (all constables from CBI).

Bhushan is likely to submit a list 30-odd personnel from ITBP and CBI, who were deployed at Sinha’s residence. All these names will prominently figure in the list.

dna first reported on September 2 about two top officials from the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) meeting Sinha at least 50 times in 15 months at 2, Janpath – his official residence.

It is to be seen how, and to what, extent Sinha will save his face before the bench headed by Justice H L Dattu. The bench has been hearing cases like the 2G spectrum allocation, involving former telecom minister A Raja and DMK leader Kanimozhi.

Sinha was at the centre of controversy before the apex court after the petitioner-NGO’s lawyer, Prashant Bhushan, cited dna’s news item and brought to the court’s notice that the visitors’ entry register at Sinha’s residence is “very disturbing” and contains “explosive material” in the 2G spectrum allocation scam against Reliance Telecom.

The court, which went through the diary in detail, took a serious view and asked Bhushan to file an affidavit in support of the documents, so that it can pass an appropriate order.

dna, which has access to Sinha’s visitors’ diary, had reported that two ADAG officials – Tony Jesudasan and AN Sethuraman (whose names are mentioned incompletely in the diary like Tony, Toni, ....., Setu Raman and Toni + Setu) had visited Sinha’s house individually and together almost every week between May 2013 and August 2014 and the cars they used are registered in the name of ADAG.

The frequency of their visits increased this year when Sinha moved a proposal to re-investigate the case against Reliance Telecom and Swan Telecom on grounds that some new facts have come to light.

dna also reported about Sinha’s meeting with alleged hawala operator and Kanpur-based meat exporter Moin Akhtar Qureshi.

Sinha met Qureshi at least 90 times in the last 15 months. The two seem to be family friends as Qureshi’s wife, Nasreen, is also a frequent visitor to 2, Janpath. Nasreen had visited Sinha’s residence at least five times.

Qureshi, who seems to enjoy a lot of clout with CBI directors, hogged into the limelight earlier this year after continuous I-T raids on his alleged business activities, which exposed his links with cabinet ministers and a political leader believed to be very close to 10, Janpath.

While the CBI was probing the coal scam, Congress MP Vijay Darda and his son Devendra – both accused in the case — visited Sinha’s residence, according to the diary. While Vijay met him in January 2014, Devendra visited Sinha 10 times between February and April 2014. The diary also includes names of some politicians like Union food and consumer affairs minister Ram Vilas Paswan and Congress leader Subodh Kant Sahay.

Paswan, along with one Mithilesh, a coal mining expert, had visited Sinha on March 16 and spent 46 minutes there.The CBI had started investigating Paswan’s role in the Bokaro Steel Plant recruitment scam, which it unearthed in January this year. In February, the agency claimed that Paswan had shot off letters of recommendation for recruitment.

By the end of February, it was clear that Paswan would be questioned by the CBI. On February 26, Paswan announced his joining the NDA. The meeting between Paswan and Sinha happened exactly 16 days after Paswan joining the NDA.

The CBI raided 30 places in January and registered two cases, but it has not questioned Paswan so far.

Controversial corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar, who was named in one of the preliminary enquiries by the CBI in the Nira Radia tapes case, visited Sinha’s residence at least 63 times in 15 months.