Ranjit Sinha: CBI was under no political pressure in Ishrat Jahan case

NEW DELHI: A political row broke out over CBI Director Ranjit Sinha’s comment to ET in an interview on Friday that the UPA government would have been happy if the agency had filed charges against Amit Shah in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case.

The BJP said the CBI was trying not to be a caged parrot like earlier while the Congress questioned why CBI had found no evidence against Shah.

Speaking to ET on Saturday, Sinha said he was not denying his comments made in the interview but stressed that the probe agency was under no political pressure in the Ishrat case.

“My observations, which have created the controversy, were to underscore the point that the investigation was fair and non-partisan and attempt to restore credibility of investigation in politically sensitive cases,” Sinha told ET on Saturday. ET stands by Friday’s story, “UPA would’ve been happy had we charged Shah: Sinha”.

We quoted the CBI director accurately. Earlier in the day, the CBI spokesperson had issued a statement saying Sinha had been “quoted unfairly and out of context”. The spokesperson added: “CBI is an impartial and an apolitical organization. In the Ishrat Jahan case, CBI has done a fair investigation to the best of its ability.”

Sinha also spoke to NDTV on Saturday with the channel quoting him saying: “BJP, Congress both may be very angry with us, but we have done a fair investigation. We have shown we are not a Congress Bureau of Investigation, as many allege.”

On Thursday, the CBI had charged former Intelligence Bureau (IB) special director Rajinder Kumar and three others for being part of the conspiracy that resulted in the deaths of Jahan — a 19-yearold Mumbai college student — and three others in Gujarat in 2004, and has for long been decried as a case of extra-judicial or encounter killing.

Politicians, meanwhile, ratcheted up attacks over Sinha’s comments, with BJP leader Arun Jaitley accusing the UPA government of “using CBI as a political tool” while BJP spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said CBI was “trying to protect its dignity”.

BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said, “It was an important statement coming from the CBI director” and alleged that the CBI had obliged the UPA three years ago by implicating Shah in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case. Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, however, wondered: “CBI found no evidence against Amit Shah, but how is it that senior police officers carried out an operation without his knowledge?” The JD (U) demanded Sinha’s resignation.