The Hyderabad Police, on Tuesday, was directed by the apex court to provide adequate security to businessman Satish Sana, the complainant in the alleged bribery case against the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Director Rakesh Asthana.
The businessman, on whose complaint an FIR was registered against Asthana, had moved the apex court on Monday seeking police protection and a stay on the notice issued by the agency summoning him for interrogation.
However, a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices U U Lalit and K M Joseph refused to stay CBI summons against Sana. It also rejected his plea for recording of his statement in presence of retired former SC judge A K Patnaik.
Meanwhile, CBI officer AK Bassi who was investigating Asthana moved Supreme Court challenging his transfer. Supreme Court, however, refused to give an urgent hearing.
AK Bassi said that he has incriminating evidence against Rakesh Asthana in bribery case. He asked Supreme Court to call for evidence of technical surveillance. Bassi has also sought setting up a Special Investigating Team (SIT) to investigate charges against Asthana.
Arrested DSP Devender Kumar moves court for bail; plea to be heard today
A bail application of Devender Kumar, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), will be heard before a court here on Tuesday.
Arrested in connection with bribery allegations involving the agency's Special Director Rakesh Asthana, he moved a bail application on Monday. However, Special CBI Judge Santosh Snehi Mann fixed the matter for hearing on Tuesday. Earlier, Kumar was sent on seven-day CBI custody by the court.
Advocate Rahul Tyagi moved the bail application.
In his bail application, Kumar termed his custody "illegal" and urged the court to set him free. It claimed that the CBI sleuths did not have valid search warrants when they raided Kumar's office and residence.
His eight mobile phones, an iPad and his son's laptop were seized, the plea said, seeking a direction to the agency to release these articles.
Kumar and Asthana have already challenged the legality of the FIR filed against them. Besides them, two alleged middlemen -- Manoj Prasad and Somesh Prasad -- have also been named as accused in the case.
Case against Devender Kumar
The agency had earlier told the court that Kumar had tried to fabricate evidence during the investigation in another case. Kumar had claimed that he was falsely implicated in the case and that he was a victim of rivalry among the senior officers of the central probe agency.
He had said he was investigating a case against meat exporter Moin Qureshi, in which the complainant in the present case -- Satish Babu Sana -- was a suspect and the names of some past and present senior CBI officers had surfaced.
Kumar had claimed that his arrest in the present case was motivated to stall the investigation in the case against Qureshi and that there was no direct allegation against him.
If convicted, the accused may get a maximum 10-year jail term in the case. The FIR in the current case was lodged on the basis of a written complaint from Sana on October 15, wherein it was alleged that Kumar, being the IO in the case against Qureshi, was repeatedly calling the complainant to the CBI office to harass him and compel him to pay a bribe of Rs 5 crore for getting a clean chit in the case.
(With inputs from agencies)
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