Apex court orders CBI to probe former chief Ranjit Sinha

In a first, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) under a new chief will, on the basis of a Supreme Court order, investigate and, probably prosecute, its former director for prima facie abusing his authority while in office.

A three-judge Bench led by Justices Madan B Lokur, Kurian Joseph and AK Sikri on Monday gave CBI chief Alok Verma, who took office only last week, to form a Special Investigation Team (SIT), which he will personally head, to probe the role played by former CBI director Ranjit Sinha to “scuttle enquiries, investigations and prosecutions being carried out by the CBI in coal block allocation cases and other important cases”.

The order came on the basis of revelations made by NGO Common Cause, represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan, which accessed the visitors’ log maintained at Sinha’s official residence when he headed the country’s premier investigating agency. The visitors’ book showed frequent and unofficial meetings held by Sinha at home with accused persons in the multi-crore coal scam cases in the absence of investigating officers.

The court had earlier appointed a former CBI special director, ML Sharma, to go through the entries in the log book and conduct enquiries into other relevant documents to verify the allegations against Sinha. Sharma had reported back in March 2016 to the apex court that an enquiry by a SIT was necessary.

The court reposed its hope on Verma to head an impartial investigation against Sinha. It said a “change of guard” at the CBI’s helm does away with the need to hand over the probe to an outside agency. It expressed its hope that the new CBI chief would conduct the investigation with “due earnestness”.

“We have considered the issue whether an outside body of investigators should be appointed as the Special Investigating Team. However, in our considered opinion, since there has been a change of guard in the CBI, we would continue to repose our faith in the impartiality of the CBI to look into the report prepared by ML Sharma and other relevant documents and conduct an investigation (as a Special Investigating Team) into the abuse of authority prima facie committed by Ranjit Sinha,” Justice Lokur observed in a four-page order.

The court directed the SIT under Verma to take the assistance of two CBI officers nominated by Verma himself and with due intimation to the court.

The CBI Director was directed to take the Chief Vigilance Commissioner into confidence in respect of the investigations and also seek the legal aid of senior advocate RS Cheema, who is the Special Public Prosecutor in the coal block allocation cases.

“We make it clear that we have not expressed any opinion on the merits of the allegations made by the petitioner (Common Cause) or make any comment on the contents of the report prepared by ML Sharma and his team except to say that a prima facie case has definitely been made out for investigation into the abuse of authority by Ranjit Sinha,” the Supreme Court observed.

In an earlier order on May 14, 2015, the Supreme Court had held that “it was completely inappropriate for Ranjit Sinha (then Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI) to have met persons accused in the coal block allocation cases without the investigating officer being present or without the investigating team being present”.

The court was of the opinion that was necessary to enquire whether any one or more such meetings that Sinha had with the accused persons had any impact on the investigations and subsequent charge–sheets or closure reports filed by the CBI.

COMMENT NOW