CBI is the premier investigative agency in the country with a dual responsibility to investigate grievous cases and provide leadership and direction in fighting corruption to the Police force across the country.
Agencies / NEW DELHI
PRIME MINISTER Narendra Modi has intervene to resolve raging battle within the country’s top investigating agency CBI, summoning two top officials who are at loggerhead.
The CBI chief Alok verma met PM yesterday. while the Deputy Rakesh Asthan met him today. The agency has filed a bribery case against second top officer Rakesh Asthana, who had written to the government listing several charges against his boss.
Mr Asthana, a Gujarat officer dubbed “the PM’s blue-eyed boy” in a tweet by Congress president Rahul Gandhi, was elevated as one of the country’s top investigators in controversial circumstances last year and given charge of major cases. Sources in the PM’s office say the CBI has not sought permission to act against Rakesh Asthana, as is required in such cases.
The rift in the top in CBI took a serious turn on Monday when a Deputy Superintendent of Police was arrested for alleged falsification of records in the bribery allegations against Special Director Rakesh Asthana.
The CBI’s First Information Report (FIR) against Rakesh Asthana is based on the claims of Sathish Sana, a Hyderabad-based businessman investigated in a money-laundering case against meat exporter Moin Qureshi.
Sathish Sana has alleged that he was asked to pay a bribe of Rs. 5 crore to Mr Asthana to be spared. The CBI says Sathish Sana told a magistrate that he had paid Rs. 2 crore as bribe to Mr Asthana over a 10 month period from December last year.
Manoj Prasad, a Dubai-based investment banker, was allegedly the middleman who organized the bribe. He was arrested on October 16 when he was allegedly about to collect an installment. The CBI claims nine phone calls made by Manoj Prasad’s brother Somesh immediately after the arrest included conversations with Mr Asthana.
Somesh Prasad has also been charged by the CBI. Manoj and Somesh are the sons of a former officer of the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). The CBI says the role of R&AW officials is also being investigated.
In a complaint to the government in August, Rakesh Asthana had alleged it was the CBI chief who took that bribe but had framed him, because he prevented Sathish Sana from skipping the country.
Rahul Gandhi tweeted this morning: “The PM’s blue-eyed boy, Gujarat cadre officer, of Godra SIT fame, infiltrated as No. 2 into the CBI, has now been caught taking bribes. Under this PM, the CBI is a weapon of political vendetta. An institution in terminal decline that’s at war with itself.”