Bail for Asthana co-accused with CBI nod... OFFICER FACES VERMA FRAME-UP CHARGES

Devender Kumar (top)
and Rakesh Asthana (below)

TT, New Delhi: A Delhi court on Wednesday granted bail to CBI deputy superintendent of police Devender Kumar, arrested in connection with a bribery case against special director Rakesh Asthana, after the agency decided not to oppose his bail petition.

OFFICER FACES VERMA FRAME-UP CHARGES 

The development comes a day after a CBI officer told the Supreme Court he feared that efforts were on to give a "clean chit" to Asthana, who is believed to have friends among the highest levels of the government and the ruling party.

Kumar, said to be close to Asthana, is accused of fabricating a statement from a key witness to implicate CBI director Alok Verma in the bribery case. Verma and Asthana, who had levelled bribery charges against each other in a prolonged turf war, were both benched on October 24.

Since then, the agency has replaced the investigating officer in the case against Asthana. A.K. Bassi, said to be close to Verma, was transferred to Port Blair and replaced with Satish Dagar, a superintendent of police.

Bassi told the Supreme Court on Tuesday there was a threat to his life and a possibility of evidence-tampering to make him a scapegoat for sincerely investigating the case against Asthana.

He alleged that Dagar's actions had created an apprehension that the officer "has been instructed to ensure that Asthana is ultimately provided the clean chit".

Kumar was the investigating officer in a case against meat exporter Moin Qureshi, accused of money-laundering and facilitating bribes for senior CBI officials from rich people they were probing.

According to the FIR, Kumar had repeatedly called a co-accused, Hyderabad businessman Satish Babu Sana, to the CBI office to harass him and try to force him to pay a Rs 5-crore bribe to secure a clean chit in the case. A part of the bribe was allegedly paid.

He has also been accused of forging Sana's statement to frame Verma.

Special CBI judge Santosh Snehi Mann granted bail to Kumar and asked him to furnish a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and a surety of like amount.

Terming his custody "illegal", Kumar had urged the court to set him free. He said he was ready to abide by any conditions set by the court.