CBI chief says report on coal block ‘clean and clear’

At its last hearing on April 12,the court had asked Sinha to file an affidavit stating that the details of the report had not been shared with anyone as claimed by Additional Solicitor General Haren Raval before the court. Sinha told PTI that no substantive changes were allowed to be made in the status report of the CBI filed on March 6.

“There has been no substantive changes allowed in the report. Both the reports are with the apex court and the Hon’ble court can ascertain itself. No accused or suspect has been let off and the findings of the report are not tampered with. It’s a clean and clear probe,” Sinha said on the eve of filing the affidavit in the Supreme Court.

In his earlier affidavit filed on April 26,Sinha had said,“I submit that the draft of the same (status report) was shared with Law Minister as desired by him prior to its submission before the Supreme Court. Besides the political executive,it was also shared with one joint secretary level officer each of Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of Coal as desired by them,” the affidavit said. According to reports,Raval was also present in the meeting which took place on March 5.

Sinha said the facts will speak for themselves “as there has been no attempt to mislead the court by the CBI. Let’s refrain from making any judgment on the changes and leave it to the apex court which will take a view on that”.

He said this was only the first status report in the matter and that in future no report on the progress of the coal scam probe would be shared with the government.

The CBI chief hoped that the Supreme Court will issue guidelines to the agency for dealing with such cases in future. “I will be filing my affidavit in the Supreme Court tomorrow about which I cannot share any details to the media but I am hopeful that something positive will emerge from this exercise and the apex court lays down a set of guidelines defining relations between the CBI and the government and how should the agency respond in similar cases in future. After all at the end of the day,we at the CBI and the Supreme Court,want only truth to prevail and guilty to be punished.”

The CBI director said there was no injunction from the Supreme Court earlier that the report should not be shared with anyone. “But one cannot blame me for the stand taken by ASG in the court. If he (Raval) would have checked with the CBI,we would have ensured that nothing is hidden from the apex court.”