Rakesh Asthana brother MK Asthana makes charges against officers

Amid Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) controversy, for the first time a family member of IPS officer Rakesh Asthana has come on record on Wednesday claiming that "fake propaganda, fake news and fake information" were spread by people of vested interests. Without naming anyone, Asthana younger brother MK Asthana alleged some officers in CBI tried to scuttle the covert operation led by his brother Rakesh Asthana and his team to extradite middleman Christian Michel in AgustaWestland case.

"The CBI team led by Rakesh Asthana was investigating the AgustaWestland case, successfully extradited the middleman Michel in absolute perfect coordination with IB, RAW, NSA and ministry of external affairs, despite last-minute efforts by one section of CBI to scuttle the whole operation by illegally tapping phone calls of officers, government functionaries linked to this extradition process," he claimed.

Asthana's younger brother MK Asthana, in an open letter on Wednesday, said people holding very high connections to very influential people – be it prominent lawyers, lawmakers and powerful media lobby – spread fake news and propaganda.

His brother said when Rakesh Asthana and his team was probing several politically sensitive corruption cases — IRCTC Scam, Aircel-Maxis scam, PNB scam, Vijay Mallya extradition, AugustaWestland chopper scam and others — in some of those investigations, his team was surprised to find the leads of corruption within CBI.

"Without delay, the matter was reported to CVC, otherwise if not reported, he and his team could be said to be biased or hiding corruption within the premier organisation," he writes.

‘Dirty Tricks’

Asthana’s younger brother states in the letter that the corrupt officers played all kinds of “dirty tricks”, got the links and influenced Verma to go “slow or scuttle probes”