Amid raging controversy, the petitioner in Coalgate, Prashant Bhushan, on Saturday alleged that Attorney General GE Vahanvati too was present in the controversial meeting that law Minister Ashwani Kumar had with CBI officials wherein the last status report of the agency was vetted before being submitted to the Supreme Court.
Bhushan also alleged that Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Ravi Kant, heading the probe into the multi-crore scam, was shunted out by the agency after the controversial meeting on March 12. Quoting a media report, Prashant Bhushan further alleged that the CBI’s status report on the coal block allocation scam was not only shared with the law Minister and officials of the Prime Minister’s Office but was also diluted at their instance.
“All this shows, why the Government is not willing to let go of their control of the CBI at any cost because an independent CBI under an independent lokpal would result in more than half of present Cabinet going to jail and prevent the Government from pressurising the leader of various parties by alternately pushing and soft-peddling CBI investigations against them,” Bhushan said.
The petitioner in the coal block allocation scam also said, “This brazen interference in the Coalgate investigation by this Government, as an investigation being currently monitored by the Supreme Court, shows the desperation of this Government and requires the immediate sacking of the law Minister and the Attorney General, apart from officials of the PMO. In fact, it requires the resignation of the PM himself.”
Demanding an independent CBI under the Jan lokpal Bill, Bhushan said these facts make out an unanswerable case for a probe by a Special Investigation Team into the Coalgate and various Ministers’ role including that of the PM.
In the last hearing before the apex court on March 12, Bhushan had made the plea that since the investigation of the Coalgate scam involves inquiring into the role of the Prime Minister and other Cabinet Ministers, therefore the CBI would not be able to investigate into it independently because it is directly controlled by them.
The CBI has not filed affidavit as yet. The report is speculative. The DIG was laterally shifted to IB after completion of his tenure on self volition, said the CBI Director.
On Bhushan’s plea, the court observed that the CBI is not sharing the reports with the Government. On this, Attorney General Vahanvati representing the Government stated that even he had not seen the status report, what to say of the Government.
Interestingly, the court asked the CBI Director Ranjit Sinha to file his own affidavit stating that the status report has not been shared and would not be shared with the Government.
The petition in the case has been filed by Prashant Bhushan on behalf of the Centre for Public Interest litigation and Common Cause.