"I have met officials of Reliance but have I shown favour to anyone?" a TV channel quoted Sinha as saying.
The matter was raised in the Supreme Court on Monday by activist-advocate Prashant Bhushan following reports in media, citing the visitors' diary purportedly maintained at the CBI chief's official residence, that Sinha hosted officials of the Anil Ambani-promoted group about 50 times.
Sinha disputed the reported frequency of his interactions with two senior R-ADAG functionaries. He maintained that he had met executives of Anil Ambani's group only "once or twice", even as sources in the agency said the CBI chief's official residence also served as a camp office from where he was supposed to discharge his official duties.
The statement coincided with reports that the visitors' diary showed that Moin Qureshi, a controversial meat exporter who is being investigated by the income tax department for allegedly running a money laundering racket, visited Sinha 90 times over a period of 15 months or so.
Although Sinha's lawyer Vikas Singh had on Monday dismissed Bhushan's charge as an attempt to damage CBI's credibility, the matter became curiouser on Wednesday because of Sinha's ambiguity on the authenticity of the diary at his official residence. He called the diary, maintained by security guards, a fake, but also conceded that some of the entries were correct.
READ ALSO: CBI chief Ranjit Sinha met 2G scam accused, petitioner says
Bhushan had cited the report about Sinha's visitors to substantiate the charge that the CBI chief had, if unsuccessfully, tried to dilute 2G scam-related charges against R-ADAG. The alleged attempt to let R-ADAG off the hook could not succeed because of the opposition from U U Lalit, the Supreme Court-appointed special public prosecutor who is now an SC judge.
When contacted, Vikas Singh said that while he would not like to comment on a matter which was sub-judice, there was no impropriety involved in the CBI chief meeting the accused. "CBI director being the supervisory officer has to meet everybody. All investigating officers and supervisory officers meet the accused. Generally speaking, if the accused is on bail, he has every right to go and meet supervisory officer and tell if he feels the trial is not being conducted fairly," he said.
He also questioned the veracity of the diary produced by Bhushan in court. "Also, these allegations are based on a completely unverified document and a document which is not even maintained in the usual course. So nothing can be commented on them. If this document has been provided to Mr Bhushan, then what is the sanctity of the document. There is no such file or register available at the residence of the CBI director," he added.
(CBI chief Ranjit Sinha)
But the confident demeanour could not fully mask the anxiety in CBI circles over what the court might do. In fact, sources indicated that a discreet inquiry was already underway to catalogue those who visited Sinha at his official residence and to find out how the details got leaked.
Sources said CBI staffers are responsible for maintaining only two registers — one which records the movements of the CBI chief and the other dealing with the movements of agency personnel.
Agency staffers are not concerned with recording the visits of people who are not with the CBI. The inquiry may help shed light on how records were being maintained and by whom of the purported visits of influential people without CBI staffers getting a whiff. However, it is the Supreme Court on which all attention will be focused on Thursday.
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