Alok Verma Should Not Deal With FIR Against Rakesh Asthana : CBI DySP's Plea In Delhi HC

CBI Deputy SP Devender Kumar Thursday moved the Delhi High Court seeking direction to the probe agency not to allow Director Alok Kumar Verma and other re-transferred officers to deal with the bribery FIR lodged against him and Special Director Rakesh Asthana.

The plea is likely to be listed for hearing on Friday before Justice Najmi Waziri, who has already reserved verdict on various petitions of Asthana, Kumar and alleged middleman Manoj Prasad seeking to quash the bribery FIR lodged against them.

Verma resumed duties on Wednesday after the Supreme Court set aside the October 23, 2018 central government's order sending him on forced leave.

He has withdrawn most of the transfer orders, including that of CBI DIG M K Sinha, made by M Nageswar Rao who was made interim chief in Verma's absence.

Kumar's application filed in pending petition said the Supreme Court has reinstated Verma as the CBI director but has directed him not to take any major policy decision.

"Further to his reinstatement, Verma in a clear violation of the order of the Supreme Court and also with a clear mala-fide brought back the investigating team which had been removed because of its biased and illegal manner of working in the present matter.

"Verma, within few hours of his resuming office as CBI director, passed fresh orders, recalling earlier order of transfer of Respondent no 3 (Joint Director A K Sharma), DIG (Manish Kumar Sinha), SP (S S Grum) and Dy SP (A K Bassi)," the application said.

It alleged that such reinstatement has re-affirmed Kumar's claim of a mala fide and biased investigating team.

He also sought direction to CBI to produce the October 4, 2018 handwritten complaint by complainant Sathish Babu Sana, a Hyderabad-based businessman, and the pre-registration file maintained in the FIR.

Kumar urged the court to consider the Sana's handwritten complaint and the pre-registration file, before adjudicating the matter and pronouncing the final judgment.

He claimed that after conclusion of the hearing on his petition to quash the FIR, he came to know that the complainant had given a handwritten complaint to the CBI on October 4, 2018.

While allegations of harassment were made, his name did not figure in the complaint and he was not accused of any wrong doing by Sana, the application claimed.

Claiming to be falsely implicated in the case, Kumar alleged that the October 4 complaint was not converted into FIR and that Verma and Sharma had "prompted" Sana give a statement under Section 164 CrPC by cooking up a false story to implicate him.

He said the FIR was lodged on October 15, 2018, on the basis of a typed statement of that date which was allegedly signed by Sana.

The high court had on December 20 last year reserved its order on the pleas of Asthana, Kumar and Prasad seeking to quash the FIR against them.

Kumar, earlier the investigating officer in a case involving meat exporter Moin Qureshi, was arrested on October 22, 2018 on the allegations of forgery in recording the statement of Sana who had alleged to have paid bribe to get relief in the case. He was granted bail on October 31.

Sana, on whose complaint the FIR was lodged, had also made allegations of corruption, extortion, high-handedness and serious malpractices against Asthana.