CBI’S 2G CASE BECAME SHAKY FROM RANJIT SINHA’S TIME

In November 2014, when Sinha was still CBI director, Supreme Court passed an order asking him not to interfere in the 2G scam probe.

Alist of more than 120 witnesses ranging from a peon in the Department of Telecom to the group president of Reliance, and 654 sets of documents were submitted in April 2011 by the CBI’s investigating officer Vivek Priyadarshi, when he filed the charge-sheet at the CBI special court overseeing the 2G scam investigation. The actual FIR was registered in October 2009. Former and serving CBI officers, who were a part of the investigation at one point or the other, unanimously told this newspaper that the initial investigation and the resultant charge-sheet were meticulous, and were more than enough to convict certain politicians. However, they added that subsequently, the CBI “mis-argued” the case, leading to the acquittal of the accused. Coincidentally, Ranjit Sinha was director of the CBI in the period that the “mis-argument” happened and CBI officers questioned his “role” in the whole controversy.

“I have read the chargesheet and it was more than enough to convict at-least the political leader named as an accused, if not everyone. The problem, I feel, came at the prosecution stage, when the CBI was required to present the investigation and evidence in the court of law and argue and convince it by using these evidences, that wrongdoing had taken place. It is obvious that this was not done by the prosecutors, who as per the rules, in such a high profile case, are expected to keep the CBI director in the loop. Ranjit Sinha should be able to tell us better as to what went wrong as it was during his tenure that the case was being tried in court, and it was during his tenure that it ‘deteriorated’,” said a senior CBI officer who was involved in the investigation, requesting anonymity.

The investigation in the case started when the CBI was headed by Ashwani Kumar (August 2008-November 2010) and the charge-sheet was filed when A.P. Singh was the director (November 2010-November 2012). After that Ranjit Sinha became the director of the agency (30 November 2012-30 November 2014), during whose tenure the case was presented by the CBI legal team in the court of Special CBI judge, O.P. Saini. Judge Saini, too, in his judgement has stated that initially the prosecution started with great enthusiasm, but later that enthusiasm waned.

In November 2014, when Sinha was still the CBI director, the Supreme Court passed an order asking Sinha not to interfere in the 2G scam probe. The bench of Chief Justice H.L. Dattu, Justice M.B. Lokur and Justice A.K. Sikri, in a written order, said it was “not giving elaborate reasons” for its decision in order “to protect the faith in the institution and the reputation of the Director of the CBI”. The court had given the order while hearing a PIL that alleged that Sinha interfered in the investigation and the prosecution of the 2G spectrum scam case.