Supreme Court removes CBI chief Ranjit Sinha from 2G case

Sinha has been accused by lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan of trying to protect some of the telecom executives that his agency has charged with criminal conspiracy.

The bench ruled that there is "credible" information that CBI director Ranjit Sinha has been trying to subvert his own agency's inquiry on the telecom scandal,

It directed Sinha to recuse himself from the investigation into the 2G scam when the second-wave generation of airwaves were allegedly given with out-of-turn mobile network licenses to firms who paid kickbacks.

Sinha's integrity came under scanner after Bhushan submitted in September a diary of visitors to the CBI chief's home.

Centre or Public Interest Litigation's (CPIL) counsel Prashant Bhushan has brought allegations against Sinha of abusing his office (CBI) and his powers to influence the investigation in the wrong-path as well as trying to protect the accused in the high profile coal allocation and 2G cases.

In his petition against Sinha, Bhushan has alleged that the CBI Director has met top officials of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) owned Reliance Telecom at least 50 times in 15 months at his 2, Janpath residence residence in Delhi.

He alleged that regular house calls were made by men to Sinha who are named as the accused by the CBI.

Bhushan had also submitted before the court a copy of the entry register at Sinha's house which showed that some of the accused in 2G scam case were his "visitors".

It may be noted here that Reliance Telecom is among the companies accused of paying kickbacks to former Telecom Minister A Raja to get out-of-turn mobile network licenses in 2008. 
Some of its top executives were jailed along with Raja. 

All the accused are on bail and are being tried on criminal charges.

Ranjit Sinha in his defence has told the top court earlier that all charges against him are "patently false".

Though he did not denied the home visits, but has said they were less frequent than claimed by some media reports, and that they did not influence him.

Giving reactions to media, CBI chief said, "I have met officials of Reliance but have I shown favour to anyone?"

He also described a visitors' diary from his home which will be reviewed by the Supreme Court on Thursday as "fake".

But the apex court’s bench comprising of Justices HL Dattu, SA Bobde and AM Sapre, before whom the petition has been made, took cognizance of Bhushan’s petition and sought 61-year-old Ranjit Sinha's response on why an SIT investigation should not be initiated against him for alleged conflict of interest in the probe.

The apex court asked the CBI director to file response in 10 days and posted the matter.

It is noteworthy to mention that it was on CPIL's petition that Supreme Court in 2008 agreed to monitor the CBI's inquiry rupees two years ago into how and why telecom and coal resources were distributed without a transparent bidding process that cost the national exchequer lakhs of crores.

It is noteworthy to mention that CPIL is an an NGO associated with 2G spectrum case.

Earlier during the hearing, the top court ordered CBI officers, who were present in the courtroom, to head to work straight away instead of attending a hearing about their top boss.

Chief Justice of India HL Dattu said: “How come so many officers are standing here? We don’t require so many officers here. Let them not waste time here and go and work in office.”

Meanwhile, Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj welcomed apex court's decision.

It has been learnt that, earlier Both had written to former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh objecting to the appointment of Ranjit Sinha as CBI chief.

Swaraj and Jaitley, who are now Union Ministers, were leaders of opposition in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha respectively then.

Manmohan Singh's coalition UPA government was in power both when the telecom licenses were handed out and when the auditor shared the estimate of losses.