File Photo: Ranjit Sinha, CBI director
The Central Bureau of Investigation CBI director, Ranjit Sinha, sent a letter to all the judges of the Supreme Court on Thursday mentioning that Joint Director OP Galhotra, a 1985 batch IPS officer, who is incharge of the probe into the coal block allocation scam would not be looking after any of the coal scam cases and Additional Director R K Dutta would take his place.
Mr Sinha, who sent the letter in view of the allegations hurled at the CBI officer in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, assured the court that the investigation in the coal scam has
been done in a fair and impartial manner.
The letter said that the Joint Director had already recused himself from the case in which his relative was working.
However, in view of the allegation made by lawyer Prashant Bhushan, the CBI director accepted the offer of Mr Galhotra for recusing himself from all coal scam-related cases and
appointed Mr Dutta, a 1981 batch IPS officer from Karnataka, to supervise all such cases.
Mr Bhushan, who represents a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), had alleged that Mr Galhotra's relatives were working with the Jindal group, which is an accused in the coal scam.
The CBI Director also made a suo-moto offer that all the preliminary enquiries, which ended up in closure, may be scrutinised by the Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC). CBI has already sent 25 cases to Central Vigilance Commission seeking its opinion about the closure report filed in these cases.