SC Orders SIT Probe Into Alleged Abuse of Power by Former CBI Chief Ranjit Sinha

NGO Common Cause had appealed for SIT probe over his meetings with top executives of telecom firms accused in 2G Scam.

Pronouncing its verdict on a plea filed by NGO Common Cause against Ranjit Sinha, the Supreme Court of India on Thursday said that he must be probed for alleged abuse of power he held as a CBI director. The plea sought an SIT probe into alleged scuttling of investigations into coal block allocation scam as well as the massive bungling in 2G spectrum allocation.

The bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph had on Monday reserved the judgement on the NGO's plea against Sinha, who has been opposing the same, according to an IANS report.

The NGO and its activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan had revealed the details of Sinha's visitor's diary and alleged that investigations into some of the coal scam cases were influenced by the several meetings between the former CBI director and some top executives from the companies accused in coal block allocation scam cases.

Although Sinha denied being influenced by any of the telecom firms and claimed that it "is a part of the job of the supervisory officer to meet and know the part of the story of the accused", the SC now wants the SIT to clarify with the probe whether his claims are true or false.

Based on the allegations, Sinha had been asked to back out from the investigations into 2G spectrum scam case, following which he resigned from his post and Anil Kumar took over as the next CBI chief.