Rakesh Asthana case: Investigating officer moves SC against his transfer

Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Manish Kumar Sinha, who was leading the team probing Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Director Rakesh Asthana's case, moved Supreme Court against his transfer to Nagpur and pleaded a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the case on Monday.

Sinha alleged that he was unjustly transferred to Nagpur in the wee hours of October 24 as his investigation was leading towards certain influential people.

His application terms the transfer "arbitrary, motivated and malafide" and one that is made "solely with the purpose and intent to victimise the officer as the investigation revealed cogent evidence against certain powerful persons."

The Apex Court denied listing the matter and asked Sinha's lawyer to be present in court on Tuesday when the main matter comes up for hearing instead.

In his application, Sinha claimed that there is a "deliberate, concerted attempt to change the course of investigation of the said FIR, there is reasonable apprehension/likelihood of tampering with evidence, exonerate the existing accused persons against whom there already exists overwhelming evidence and on the contrary, implicate/punish, as a first step of which the applicant was transferred to Nagpur twelve hundred kilometers away in a completely arbitrary manner in the name of so-called public interest, all those, like the Applicant herein, who were involved in the investigation and were merely discharging their duties, impartially, without fear or favour."

CBI had registered an FIR against Asthana on October 21 in an alleged bribery case. Thereafter the government sent him and CBI Director Alok Verma on leave after both traded bribery charges against each other.