SC to pass verdict on plea for SIT probe against ex-CBI chief

New Delhi, May 13: The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce its verdict tomorrow on a plea filed by an NGO seeking a probe by a Special Investigating Team (SIT) against former CBI Director Ranjit Sinha for allegedly scuttling the probe into a coal block allocation scam case.

A bench, comprising Justices M B Lokur, Kurian Joseph and A K Sikri, had reserved its judgement on April 13 in the matter in which Sinha had claimed that a "hidden hand" was the "controlling mind" of lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who has filed the petition on behalf of the NGO, and has accused him of interfering and scuttling the probe into the coalgate.

In the plea, NGO Common Cause, has alleged that entries in the visitors' register of the former CBI Director had made it clear that he was meeting the high-profile accused and those associated with coal block allocation former Union Minister Subodh Kant Sahay.

The plea had also said there was a need for a court-monitored SIT investigation to ascertain "whether any consideration exchanged hands". The NGO, in its application, had submitted that since the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) of Delhi Police has not lodged an FIR on its November 25, 2014 complaint, there was a need for a court-monitored probe for alleged abuse of authority by Sinha as the then director of CBI.

However, Sinha has rejected the NGO's claim that he and a few other senior officers of the level of Joint Director repeatedly overruled the investigating officers (IOs) and forced them not to register FIRs/RCs in cases where Preliminary Enquiries had been registered and directed closure of the cases.

The bench is also hearing the application filed by Sinha accusing the NGO and its counsel Bhushan of perjury. In the plea for perjury against the NGO and Bhushan, Sinha's counsel had said "there is not a single case in which Sinha overruled the unanimous opinion of the officers working under him with regard to recommending closure in which they have recommended conversion to a regular case.

Thus, the falsity of the statement made before this Court is evident from this count alone."

PTI