NEW DELHI:
The Delhi High Court on Thursday said it will hear on April 4, a CBI plea seeking more time to complete investigations into an FIR filed against its former Special Director Rakesh Asthana in a bribery case.
The probe agency had registered the First Information Report against Asthana, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Devender Kumar and two others, alleging that they took bribes at least five times between December 2017 and October 2018 in the Moin Qureshi case. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) told Justice Mukta Gupta that it needs six month more to complete the probe.
On January 11, the court had refused to quash the FIR against Asthana in a case involving bribery allegations filed by the agency. It had directed the CBI to conclude the probe within 10 weeks that ended on March 24.
The court, while rejecting Asthana’s pleas seeking quashing of FIRs, had also suspended Kumar and alleged middleman Manoj Prasad. The High Court had said that the allegations levelled against them were serious in nature.
According to the CBI, Kumar fabricated the statement of Sathish Sana Babu, a witness in the businessman Moin Qureshi case, showing he recorded the statement on September 26, 2018, in Delhi. However, a probe later revealed that Sana was not in Delhi on that day. He was in Hyderabad and joined the investigation only on October 1, 2018.
