Swaraj Abhiyan leaders Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav on Tuesday accused CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana of accepting huge money from controversial company Sterling Biotech, booked by CBI for bribing Income-Tax officials and Rs 5000 cr bank fraud.
Producing certain portions of the bribe payout diaries seized from the company in the press conference here, Bhushan and Yadav said the diary entries expose that Asthana took around Rs 3.5 crore from the Sterling Biotech.
In the Press conference, the leaders said the Government's decision to celebrate 'Anti-Black Money Day' is just a joke, citing many cases of black money trail by corporate, including the recently leaked 'Paradise Papers'. Bhushan alleged that Asthana was Police Commissioner in Surat in 2011, when he regularly accepted money favours from the Gujarat based Sterling Biotech and Sandesara Group of companies.
Blaming the Government for promoting Asthana as Special Director, Bhushan pointed out that his tenure in the agency is untenable, when the CBI has registered two FIRs against the company. First FIR was registered against many senior Income-Tax officers whose name was in the bribe payout Diaries, where Asthana's name was also involved.
Bhushan also said in many cases Modi Government is not at all acting and claims on anti-corruptions were just fake. “The Government must rollback retrograde changes in political funding laws, insisted make new laws to check black money,” said the Swaraj Abhiyan leaders.