CBI chief Ranjit Sinha pulls up officer who recommended questioning of Manmohan Singh

NEW DELHI: CBI Director Ranjit Sinha has asked KR Chaurasia, the officer in charge of investigating the alleged irregular allocation of coal blocks, to explain why he recommended questioning of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a stage when the agency is yet to get hold of the requisite files. Sinha is also said to have pulled up Chaurasia, a superintendent-level officer, for his action.

“The officer (Chaurasia) has been asked to explain on what basis he had recommend the questioning of the PM when the CBI was still to get vital files on the coal allocation scam from the government,” a senior CBI official told ET on the condition of anonymity considering the sensitivity of the matter.

The official said Sinha had ordered an inquiry into how the internal communication of the CBI that contained several recommendations, including the one to examine the PM, had been ‘leaked’ to the media after the CBI director turned down the recommendation from Chaurasia on the ground that the PM’s questioning was “not required at this stage”.


The official said once CBI gets the required files, it will first examine the former principal secretary to the PM, TKA Nair, before reaching the PM’s doorstep, if required at all, as a certain “hierarchy” had to be followed in the investigation process. “As of today, CBI has not put in any request to even examine Nair. As per the apex court order, CBI has to complete the probe in all the coal cases by December,” the official said.

The Supreme Court is monitoring the case and has ordered that no CBI officer in the 33-member coal probe team can be shifted out or transferred without the court’s permission.

An official CBI spokesperson, when contacted, offered no comment on any of these matters. A senior CBI official also confirmed CBI’s requests to examine present Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampath and Election Commissioner HS Brahma, both of whom were power secretaries in 2008 and 2009, had been turned down by the government since both were now holding “constitutional posts”.

When asked when Congress leaders like Naveen Jindal and ex-MoS for Coal, DN Rao — named as accused in the CBI’s FIR nearly two months ago — will be questioned, the official said: “Wait a few days.” ET was the first to report on August 17 that CBI would be summoning Jindal and Rao after the monsoon session of Parliament gets over on September 7. TKA Nair, currently serving as an advisor to the PM, was the PM’s principal secretary from 2004 to 2011.