CBI special director Rakesh Asthana named as accused in bribery case

Rakesh Asthana has been named as a key accused in a bribery case by the CBI.

NEW DELHI: Tightening the nose against one of its very senior officers, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has named its special director, Rakesh Asthana, as an accused in a bribery case.

Asthana, who is No. 2 in the CBI hierarchy, has been named as a key accused along with several others in the case.

Asthana has been booked for allegedly demanding and taking bribe from businessman Moin Qureshi, who is facing investigation in connection with a corruption case by a Special Investigation Team headed by the officer himself.

The apex investigating agency had earlier informed the Central Vigilance Commission that it was probing Asthana in six cases of corruption.

The agency also claimed that Asthana was maligning its Director Alok Verma’s image and trying to “intimidate” officials by sending a “frivolous” complaint to the CVC against Verma. 

The CBI action against Asthana came following the arrest of a Dubai-based middleman Manoj Prasad. 

Moin Qureshi was raided by the Income Tax Department in 2014 and his messages with former CBI director AP Singh had led to Singh's resignation as member of the Union Public Services Commission. 

In 2017, the CBI had registered a case and this was one of the several cases being handled by Asthana.

Sana Satish, a complainant in the case, had on October 4 named Asthana before the Magistrate.

He also claimed that he was being harassed by the CBI officers to pay more. 

Satish told the court how he had paid Rs 3 crore over a period of 10 months from December 2017 to stay away from the CBI case.