'No smoke without fire'

The removal of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director Ranjit Sinha by the Supreme Court from the telecom scam case prompted the agency's former chiefs to term it a "bad dream", which they would like to forget.

Reacting to the apex court's removal of Sinha from the case and critical remarks against him, former CBI chief R K Raghavan said this was the first time such an order had been passed by the Supreme Court against an agency chief, asking him to recuse from an ongoing investigation.

"It is a distressing and an unfortunate event. I want to forget it as a bad dream. But one must remember this is an indictment of an officer and not an organisation," he said.

Another former CBI director, Joginder Singh, termed the event "unfortunate".

"Every act has its consequences. There is no smoke without fire. Whatever the Supreme Court has said is absolutely correct - lots of allegations of credibility are against him. The court does not pass orders lightly," he said.