Can,t reveal 'whistle-blower': Prashant Bhushan tells SC

The apex court on Monday has asked the lawyer-activist to reveal who gave him a list of visitors to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director Ranjit Sinha’s home which Bhushan had submitted earlier this month.

Earlier, Centre for Public litigation (CPIL), the NGO which Bhushan representing in this case told the court that the information is received from “reliable” source, following which the accused, Ranjit Sinha appealed to the court to ask Bhushan reveal the name of whistle-blower.

CBI chief landed in big controversy after he has been accused by Centre or Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), an NGO associated with 2G spectrum case of meeting people who are accused in 2G and ‘Coalgate scam’.

CPIL counsel Prashant Bhushan has brought allegations against Sinha of abusing his office (CBI) and his powers to influence the investigation in the wrong-path as well as trying to protect the accused in the high profile coal allocation and 2G cases.

In his petition against Sinha, Bhushan has alleged that the CBI Director has met top officials of the Reliance Telecom at least 50 times in 15 months at his 2, Janpath residence residence in Delhi.

Bhushan told the apex court that entry register at Sinha’s residence is "very disturbing" and contains "explosive material" in 2G spectrum allocation scam against Reliance Telecom.

Bhushan had also submitted before the court a copy of the entry register at Sinha's house which showed that some of the accused in 2G scam case were his "visitors".

He sought Sinha’s removal from the CBI chief’s post for allegedly trying to protect companies and people against whom his office is investigating on criminal charges in the 2G and Coal allocation scam.

In reply, CBI director Ranjit Sinha accepted that he met some of the officials but denied doing any favours.

He also challenged the plea by saying that the major portion of the list is “fake”.

But the apex court’s bench comprising of Justices HL Dattu, SA Bobde and AM Sapre, before whom the petition has been made, took cognizance of Bhushan’s petition and sought 61-year-old Ranjit Sinha's response on why an SIT investigation should not be initiated against him for alleged conflict of interest in the probe.

The apex court asked the CBI director to file response in 10 days.

In his reply, the CBI chief appealed to the top court that the whistle-blower’s name is made public.

It was on this issue, that the SC asked Bhushan to reveal the name of the 'whistle-blower'. To which, Bhushan had told the court on Monday that he needs to ask that person first.

It is noteworthy to mention that it was on CPIL’s petition that Supreme Court agreed to monitor the CBI's inquiry two years ago into how and why telecom and coal resources were distributed without a transparent bidding process that cost the national exchequer lakhs of crores.