An alleged middleman whose arrest set in motion a chain of events that culminated in the midnight purge in the CBI has been granted bail because the headless investigative agency failed to file a chargesheet on time.
Manoj Prasad, the son of a former official of the external intelligence agency RAW, was arrested in October on the charge of collecting bribes — allegedly on behalf of benched special director Rakesh Asthana — from persons of interest to the CBI on the promise of protection from investigation.
A Delhi court on Tuesday granted bail to Manoj as the agency could not submit the chargesheet 60 days from the date of arrest.
Special CBI judge Santosh Snehi Mann said Manoj was entitled to statutory bail as the agency could not file the chargesheet within the stipulated time.
Appearing for Manoj, senior counsel Vikhas Pahwa told the court the FIR against his client did not include any offence that was punishable with death, life imprisonment or jail for a maximum of 10 years.
The court granted bail to Manoj, saying: “In view of the settled legal position, the statutory period for completion of investigation (and filing of chargesheet) applicable to this case, when the accused is in judicial custody, is 60 days.”
Manoj was the sole suspect in custody in the bribery scandal. He was held at Delhi airport on Saptami morning on October 16. He was arrested the next day for allegedly collecting bribes on behalf of Asthana to provide relief to Hyderabad businessman Satish Sana, a suspect in a money-laundering case involving Moin Qureshi.
It was based on Sana’s statement before a magistrate that the now-benched CBI director Alok Verma had allowed the agency to include the name of Asthana as the prime accused in the FIR.
The inclusion of Asthana’s name had sent shockwaves through the establishment. Both Verma and Asthana were benched following the midnight swoop on the agency’s headquarters in Delhi on October 24.
The CBI director’s displacement is now pending in the Supreme Court, which has concluded the hearing and reserved its judgment.
Manoj had earlier been refused bail by the trial court on November 3 and later by Delhi High Court on November 13, which said the allegations against him were very serious in nature.
A senior CBI officer said on Tuesday night that Manoj was important to the case. “It’s a big blow to the CBI as he was granted bail,” he said.
Manoj and his brother Somesh — investment bankers in Dubai — are the alleged middlemen who collected bribes for Asthana, according to the FIR. Asthana has moved a petition in Delhi High Court seeking the quashing of the FIR.
During interrogation, Manoj is said to have dropped names and claimed proximity to “the high and the mighty”. The names included that of national security adviser Ajit Doval, according to a petition filed in the Supreme Court by CBI deputy inspector-general Manish Kumar Sinha, who was transferred following the midnight purge.
Sinha had alleged that the morning after Manoj was held, CBI officer A.K. Bassi, the lead investigator in the Asthana case, received calls from police officers who said the cabinet secretariat had enquired about the arrest.
On Tuesday, the CBI questioned businessman Sana to verify and corroborate his statement on the basis of which the agency filed the bribery case against Asthana.
The CBI investigators asked Sana to clarify some “confusion” in his complaint, sources said.
Also on Tuesday, M. Nageswara Rao, now the interim CBI director, was promoted to the rank of an additional director. His name was cleared by the appointments committee of the cabinet. Rao was not considered for the rank in November 2016 and in April 2018, PTI reports. The Supreme Court had asked Rao not to take any policy decision until it pronounced a verdict on Verma’s petition to overturn his displacement.
