CBI DSP, middleman remanded to judicial custody in bribery case involving CBI Spl Dir

A Delhi court Tuesday remanded CBI DSP Devender Kumar and middleman Manoj Prasad, arrested in connection with bribery allegations involving the agency's Special Director Rakesh Asthana, to 14-day judicial custody.

A special CBI court sent them to jail after the probe agency said that they were not required for further custodial interrogation.

Both the accused were produced before special CBI Judge Santosh Snehi Mann who will hear the bail application of Kumar on Wednesday.

During the hearing, Kumar, who was produced after the expiry of his seven-day custodial interrogation, told the court that the agency was tampering with and fabricating evidence in case against him.

He submitted that a case of theft and extortion should be lodged against CBI officials probing case.

Kumar told the court that his eight mobile phones, an iPad and his son's laptop were seized but the CBI's "seizure memo (a mandatory list of all the seized items)" only shows one mobile phone.

"The very foundation of this case is based on lies and fabrication and falsification of the evidence. They retained certain articles taken from me but did not show it in the seizure memo.

"They (CBI) are misusing their powers and misleading even this court. They are tempering with the evidence. They should be booked for theft and extortion," said advocate Rahul Tyagi, appearing for Kumar.

Replying to Kumar's application seeking release of seized goods, the investigating officer (IO) of the case, Satish Dagar, told the court that he recently took over the probe and observed that though the seizure memo mentions about only one mobile phone, there were other items as well which were lying with the TAFSU branch of the CBI for the purpose of retrieving the data.

The data of all the seized articles requires to be analyzed after retrieval to ascertain any relevance to the present case, the IO said.

The court also asked the CBI to file its reply to Kumar's bail application which will be heard on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Prasad also moved a bail application on which a notice was issued to the agency seeking its response by November 2.

Two alleged middlemen -- Manoj Prasad and Somesh Prasad -- have also been named as accused in the case.

The FIR in the current case was lodged on the basis of a written complaint from businessman Satish Sana on October 15. It was alleged that Kumar, being the IO in the case against meat exporter Moin Qureshi, was repeatedly calling the complainant to the CBI office to harass him and compel him to pay a bribe of Rs 5 crore for getting a clean chit in the case.

The complaint had also said that a part of the bribe was paid by Sana.