Who is Mithlesh Kumar, and why did he clock 275 visits to 2 Janpath?

One man who seems to have 24X7 access to the CBI director Ranjit Sinha is the mysterious Mithlesh Kumar. He visited Sinha at least 275 times in last 15 months, almost every day, even twice or thrice in a day. His identity is shrouded in mystery. Some say he is a very senior officer working with income tax department, others say he is a close aide to a minister and also a real estate consultant. And many of them suspect that he is relative of Sinha.

It is Mithlesh Kumar, who in car number DL-3C-BD-7216, brought many VIPs, including a serving minister, to Sinha’s 2, Janpath residence. According to visitors’ diary maintained at 2, Janpath accessed by dna, Mithlesh Kumar stayed at Sinha’s residence between five minutes to several hours during each visit. For example in August, 2014, Mithlesh visited the residence at least 23 times between August 1 and August 17.

The entries in the daily register mention the name of Mithlesh as Mithlesh1sir, Mithleshji, Mithleshsir, written both in English and Hindi. The other car that Mithlesh mostly used was DL7-CG-8545. 

dna chose the car DL-3C-BD-7216 to try to track down Mithlesh Kumar. The trail took dna to one Satish Kumar, owner of this Toyota Innova golden colour car, in Uttam Nagar, West Delhi. Satish Kumar said he had purchased this car from Galaxy Toyota in Kotla Mubarkpur in South Delhi. But he says he has never met Mithlesh Kumar!

“Actually my former employer Anand Gupta, a jeweller, had bought this car in my name. It is he who hires it out. I have no clue about it,’’ he told dna.

Anand Gupta owns a home appliance and a jewellery store with the name Appliance India and Jewellers India at Aurobindo Market in South Delhi. Satish worked for Gupta for 15 years, before he went on to start his own travel agency.

Satish said that Anand Gupta wanted to buy a car. He insisted that to buy one in Satish’s name. “I trusted him. He assured me that the car will be used by him. Gupta made all the payments for the purchase of the car.” Satish said that Anand would provide financial assistance to him when he needed and so he went ahead and purchased the car for him.

It was in January this year that Satish got to know that the car was not being used by Anand Gupta, but Mithlesh Kumar. “When I asked Gupta he told me that Mithlesh was his family friend and that I need not worry,” said Satish.

When Satish Kumar was speaking to dna, he received a call from Anand Gupta. Anand asked Satish to generate a taxi bill for this Toyota Innova used by Mithlesh Kumar. He put the phone on speaker mode for dna reporters to hear the conversation. “Sir but the car is with you,” said Kumar.

“It is registered in your name and you run a travel company, you can generate a bill,” said Gupta over the telephone.

To this Kumar replies, “Sir generating a bill would mean that I will have to pay service tax, when I have not made any money from the car.”

“You don’t worry about that. Just get me the bill by tonight,”said Gupta and disconnected the phone.

When dna visited Gupta’s stores, he was unavailable. “The car belongs to Satish. To help him generate business, we keep it here for our guests,” he said over the phone.

Gupta also said that Mithlesh Kumar who came to his shop as a costumer, is now a friend. “Either me or Satish rent out the car to him, whenever he needs,” he said. He also said that Mithlesh was a consultant and deals in real estate. He refused to reveal any other details about Mithlesh and even refused to give his number.