CBI director alleges perjury by Prashant Bhushan

New Delhi, Sep 20:

Director Ranjit Sinha Saturday moved the

over the conflicting positions taken by NGO CPIL's counsel

and Kamini Jaiswal on the identity of the source that provided them the alleged original copy of the entry register maintained at the gate of his official residence.

Sinha in his application said that when Bhushan handed over on Sep 8 the alleged entry register to the apex court in a sealed cover, he said it was given to him the previous night (Sep 7) by some unknown people who had come to his residence.

The CBI director said Bhushan's statement was recorded by the court in its Sep 8 order as it took the register into its custody.

However, Sinha said that when the court on Sep 15 asked the NGO to disclose the identity of the source in a sealed cover, the NGO in another affidavit said the entry register was received from a "trustworthy and reliable source".

He said it was noteworthy that the affidavit did not refer to the fact orally submitted by Bhushan and also recorded in the court's order that on "the night of Sep 7, some unknown people had come to his residence and handed over the original entry register/guest register of the residential establishment of the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation".

Pointing to the shift in stand of the petitioner NGO and its counsel, Sinha in his application Saturday said it was clear that the identity of the source referred to by Bhushan was in the "active knowledge" of the petitioner NGO and its counsel.

"All these contradictory/false statements have been deliberately and intentionally made to cause a circumstance to exist with the objective of misleading" the court and hence "Bhushan is punishable under various sections of the IPC including section 193" that provides for punishment for false evidence.

Sinha also denied that he made any attempt to bail out former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran in the Aircel-Maxis deal case.

Seeking registration of a first information report, Sinha said the NGO's plea that he should stay away from participating in the 2G investigation and trial was "clearly mischevious and based on untruth facts in which mis-statements have been deliberately made so as to obtain a favourable order from the court".