New Delhi: A Delhi court was told Friday that there was ‘clinching evidence’ against former Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special director Rakesh Asthana in a bribery case in which he was recently given a clean chit.
Special CBI judge Sanjeev Aggarwal was told by Ajay Kumar Bassi, the former investigating officer in the case that the current IO, Satish Dagar, was trying to ‘save’ Asthana and other public servants.
The court had February 12 expressed displeasure over the CBI’s investigation into the case and it had asked why the accused with bigger roles were roaming free while the probe agency had arrested its own DSP.
Asthana and DSP Devender Kumar, who was arrested in 2018 and later got bail, were named in column 12 of the chargesheet in the case since there was not enough evidence to make them accused.
The CBI had registered the case against Asthana on the basis of a complaint from Hyderabad-based businessman Satish Sana, facing probe in a 2017 case involving meat exporter Moin Qureshi.
As Bassi alleged ‘cover up’ a verbal altercation broke out in the court. “I have better antecedents than you in the organisation,” Dagar said, hitting back at Bassi. “Do not level personal allegations. I summoned you six times, why didn’t you appear if you wanted to assist in the investigation? One must ask him (Bassi), he conducted investigation only between October 15 and 23, 2018, but how does he know what is happening in the CBI? How has he infiltrated our investigation?” Dagar asked.
Dagar and CBI’s counsel opposed to additional documents that Bassi presented in court. Dagar questioned why Bassi submitted new documents that were not part of his case diary. Meanwhile Bassi told the court that Dagar has still not seized Asthana’s phone or collate other electronic evidence.
Agencies