The CBI on Monday carried out searches at the residence of its former chief Amar Pratap Singh after registering an FIR against him for allegedly favouring controversial meat exporter Moin Qureshi.
CBI sources said they have registered a case against Singh, Qureshi, his employee Aditya Sharma, owner of Trimax group of companies Pradeep Koneru and other unknown persons.
The FIR was lodged on a complaint by the Enforcement Directorate, on the probe against Qureshi for money laundering charges. CBI conducted searches in four cities — New Delhi, Ghaziabad, Chennai and Hyderabad — after registering FIR against Qureshi for accepting money from several people for securing favours from public servants.
One of Qureshi’s offices operated from a rented building owned by former CBI Director’s close relatives. The premises searched included those of an employee of Qureshi, his company, Singh’s residence and that of Pradeep Koneru in Hyderabad. Koneru is also being probed by the CBI in connection with the disproportionate assets case against YSR Congress leader Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Singh, a 1974-batch IPS officer, headed the agency between November 30, 2010 and November 30, 2012. The CBI has based its FIR on the complaint forwarded by the Enforcement Directorate chief Karnal Singh, who alleged that in the course of investigation in a Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) case against AMQ Group of companies owned by Qureshi, it transpired that the businessman was acting as a middleman for some public servants.
In his letter, the ED chief attached records of Blackberry chat messages exchanged between Singh and Qureshi to allege that cognizable offences were committed by the two in collusion with each other. Another former CBI Director Ranjit Sinha’s name was also cropped in the communications with Qureshi.
ED Assistant Director Arun Kumar, whose complaint was also attached with Singh’s letter, alleged that Qureshi took “huge money” from different persons for obtaining undue favours from public servants and politicians holding high offices. The ED has appended 22 BBM messages which were exchanged between AP Singh and Moin Qureshi even after the retirement of the IPS officer.