CBI Interim Director closes case, kicks off another controversy

The case pertains to a series of nationwide raids by the CBI in January 2015 after sleuths had arrested Income Tax Joint Commissioner Sallong Yaden and auditor Shreyans Bhandari in Chennai. The official had received Rs 8 lakh from the auditor.

As an off-shoot of this investigation, a fresh case was registered against Principal Commissioner of I-T, SK Mittal; Additional Commissioner (Exemption), Bengaluru, T N Prakash; Deputy Commissioner (Exemption), Chennai, R V Haroon Prasad; Deputy Commissioner (Investigation), Chennai, S Murali Mohan; Commissioner (Audit-2), Chennai, Vijayalakshmi; Additional Commissioner (Mumbai), S Pandian; Commissioner (DR) ITAT Mumbai, G Lakshmi Baraprasad; Additional Director General (Systems-4), Ghaziabad, Vikram Gaur; and Additional Director (Investigation), Mumbai, Rajendra Kumar in June 2016.

These officials were alleged to have enjoyed favours, including stay at five-star hotels, use of luxury cars and flight travel at the expense of the chartered accountant and his sons, and helping him with his clients’ case as a quid pro quo. Chartered accountant Sanjay Bhandari and his sons Shreyans and Divyang (chartered accountants SH Bhandari & Co) are also named as accused.

In March, when Nageswara Rao was Joint Director here, CBI’s Chennai unit had decided to file a closure report in this case. But on June 7, CBI Director Alok Verma, who was on a visit to Tamil Nadu to open the new office at Madurai, reviewed the case and issued instructions to re-open it and conduct freshinvestigation.

On October 23, head of branch, CBI, Chennai, issued a letter favouring re-opening of investigation. These facts are recorded in the note file by Praveen Sinha, Additional Director, CBI, Delhi.

However, on November 12, Rao issued orders closing the investigation with a note on the file: “As per orders at Para 81/N, the case has already reached its finality on 13 March 2018. Head of Branch to take action accordingly.”

It is not clear why Nageswara Rao decided to close the case which was reopened by the CBI Director in June, despite the Supreme Court asking him to stay away from taking policy decisions.