The high-profile ED Joint Director Rajeshwar Singh, who is probing the Aircel-Maxis deal, has accused Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia of siding with “scamsters and their affiliates” and scuttling his promotion as Additional Director. Singh made this allegation in a letter to Adhia routed through ED’s Director Karnal Singh.
Singh produced this letter to a Supreme Court Bench hearing a petition against him. The petitioners had accused Singh of amassing disproportion assets and indulgence in corruption.
“Chidambaram made my life an accentuated hell as I was investigating him and his son Karti…..However, what thoroughly baffles the undersigned, is the animosity you have fashioned against me by siding with scamsters and their affiliates in a sustained manner. It has become more than difficult for me to survive this continued onslaught and persistent vilification from all the quarters for doing my job,” said the letter dated June 11.
“In the last 20 years, all my appraisal reports, written by more than 50 senior IAS, IPS and IRS officers have uniformly rated my performance as “outstanding”. Why do you disregard their opinionIJ Is it possible for me to have managed all of them over a period of timeIJ,” said the ED Joint Director to Finance Secretary for withholding his promotion.
The ED officer claimed that Adhia made casual observations to many officers that he (Singh) delayed the probe in Aircel-Maxis case to extend his stay in Delhi.
Singh also raised a finger over the CBI and said that all actions were initiated by the ED first while the main agency CBI was lagging the probe. “Can any officer under PMlA conclude investigation without chargesheet by predicate agency (CBI),” he said.
“It pains me further that you have expressed many times to senior officers over casual conversations that I have been manipulating the Judiciary, especially Supreme Court of India. It is strange and also unbelievable that after so many years in public service, you believe that so many judges can b e manipulated and that too over such a long period of time!!. Our present Attorney General, who was also convinced that I was being hounded requested the Apex Court for appropriate protection in my case — you do not seem to agree even with the learned Attorney General!!,” said Singh.
“The undersigned has been awaiting my rightful promotion to the grade of Additional Director, ED from April 1, 2017. The proposal in this regard was processed in the Revenue Department in September 2017; it has been more than 7 months and there has been absolutely no progress — whatsoever, on this front. I am astutely aware that this is being done to not just humiliate me but also to ensure that the investigation in certain crucial cases I handle, out to derail. May I beg to ask if you are compromising on larger aspects of our national interest to set scores on a ego trip that is absolutely uncontested from my sideIJ,” he said asking why Finance Secretary was entertaining complaints from fixers like Upendra Rai, who was already named in the CBI’s Undesirable Contact Men (UCM) list.
Rai, currently in jail, filed complaint against Singh in Supreme Court in April and when it was found that it was an old rehashed contempt, he withdrew the case. In 2011, Rai faced Contempt Charges for filing fake complaints.