ADAG, Essar executives to Congress leaders, all came visiting

The Indian Express scrutinised logbooks for 15 months from May 2013 to August 2014 to find records of “meetings” with officials of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), whose officials are under investigation in connection with the 2G scam; Congress’s Vijay Darda and his son Devendra Darda, who were named as accused in the CBI’s March 2014 chargesheet in the coal scam. Devendra Darda had made five visits in the period under scrutiny. The largest number of recorded visits, 71, were by Mahendra Nahata, the promoter of Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd (HFCL), who was among the alleged beneficiaries of the 2G scam.

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Nahata had then told The Indian Express, “I am a family friend of Mr Sinha’s and have known him for two decades. I have met him a few times as a friend, but I don’t know where this 71 figure is coming from. As a friend, I will continue to meet him.”

On Sept 4, 2014, The Indian Express first reported details of Sinha’s visitors.

Deepak Talwar, a consultant whose name figured in the Niira Radia tapes, visited Sinha’s house on 54 occasions. The CBI had registered a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) against Talwar, but had closed it subsequently.

Read | Ex-Cabinet minister to coal scam accused, CM to 2G ‘beneficiary’: CBI chief’s guests

Meat exporter Moin Qureshi, whose connections with Sinha’s predecessor at the CBI A P Singh created a controversy, had visited Sinha 70 times in 2013 and 2014. There were days when Qureshi visited Sinha’s residence twice and once when he was accompanied by his wife.

Several logbook entries read “Qureshiji” and “Nahataji”, suggesting that the policemen at the gate were familiar with these frequent visitors.

Qureshi is also facing a probe by the IT department and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for allegedly laundering money. ED has already sent a reference to CBI on Qureshi and his alleged links with influential people. In its reference, ED has alleged instances of corruption involving Qureshi and “certain officials” of the agency. Annexures with the reference have details of Qureshi’s links with various people including former CBI directors Singh and Sinha. It has also attached transcripts of recorded conversations and BBM messages exchanged between Qureshi and these “certain officials”. CBI has as yet not registered a case but is examining the matter.

Logs showed that former minister Salman Khurshid visited Sinha in June 2013 and former minister Subodh Kant Sahai visited in February 2014. Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda visited twice, as did former Delhi Police commissioner Neeraj Kumar.

Asked why he had visited Sinha’s residence, Khurshid had then messaged that he had “government business”.

Sinha had then told The Indian Express, “The veracity and authenticity of the registers has to be established and all this is an invasion of my privacy. Yes, people like Deepak Talwar and Devendra Darda did come to my residence, but so what? If people want me to hear their side of the story, should I refuse to meet them?”

Sinha alleged that the persons preparing the logs repeated names and vehicle numbers, and that the visits were not as frequent as they appeared to be.

“Moin Qureshi still comes to my house since he has been very disturbed about the controversy surrounding him and the CBI. Similarly, Deepak Talwar has been coming to discuss some problems he has had with his airport project. But why should these people come every day? For what? This is someone from the inside making mischief,” he said.

Among the other corporate executives who visited him were those from Essar Group and the Abhey Oswal Group.

One Shiv Pal had visited Sinha’s residence on 120 occasions in this period. On 25 of these occasions he has been logged as “Shiv Pal + 1”.

When contacted, Pal had told The Indian Express, “I know him (the CBI director) for the past 30 years. His family is very close to me. We both are from Bihar, so sometimes, when some bureaucrats or politicians visited Delhi, we used to go together.” Pal said he owned petrol pumps in Delhi.