Coal scam case: NGO seeks probe into CBI director Ranjit Sinha and meat exporter Moin Qureshi link

NEW DELHI: A new application in the coal scam case in the Supreme Court on Thursday sought a probe into the alleged link between CBI director Ranjit Sinha and meat exporter Moin Qureshi, who appeared to have visited the former's residence 90 times in the last 15 months.

A day before the crucial hearing in the coal scam case in SC relating to the visitors' diary entries at Sinha's residence, petitioner 'Common Cause' filed an application alleging that Qureshi was extensively probed by the director, income tax (investigations) and his premises were allegedly raided by I-T authorities. "Several important documents and his computers have been seized by DGIT," it said.

The petitioner said pursuant to the investigation and seizure, the department has prepared an appraisal report. "The said report goes into the details of the illegal operations of Qureshi and his dealings with various individuals," it said.

"According to the information received from trustworthy and reliable sources by the petitioner's counsel ( Prashant Bhushan), the said appraisal report also covers in some detail the dealings of Qureshi and director CBI, Ranjit Sinha," it said and requested the apex court to direct the Union government to produce the appraisal report before the court.

On September 9, a bench headed by Chief Justice R M Lodha had sought the CBI director's response to Common Cause's application seeking probe by a special investigation team (SIT) into Sinha's alleged role in scuttling the coal scam probe.

"It is of particular significance that Ranjit Sinha had several meetings with Vijay Darda, and his son Devendra Darda, who are being investigated in the case of illegal allocation of coal blocks. Sinha also met Subodh Kant Sahay, former Union minister, whose brother's company is one of the beneficiaries of the allocation of coal blocks and is being investigated by CBI," the NGO had alleged.