The Delhi High Court on Monday granted interim protection from coercive action to an accused Sathish Babu Sana in a corruption case, subject to his joining the probe in the matter as and when required.
Justice Mukta Gupta asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file a reply on the petition of Sathish, which sought to quash an FIR in a corruption case and challenged a trial court order accepting the investigating agency plea to obtain his voice samples.
Sathish Babu Sana submitted before the Delhi High Court that the CBI is the investigating agency which has registered the FIR on February 16, 2017, and which is seeking to unjustifiably, and falsely implicate the petitioner as a "suspect" or "accused" in relation thereto in complete abuse of process, and only to wreak vengeance and settle scores.
The CBI had registered the FIR dated on February 16, 2017, pursuant to letter/complaint date August 31, 2016, by an Assistant Director, Directorate of Enforcement stating that during the course of investigation by the ED under the Foreign Exchange Act, 1999 against the AMQ Group of Companies and Moin Akhtar Qureshi.
It was revealed that Moin Akhtar Qureshi was indulging as a middleman for certain public servants and had taken huge sums of money from different persons to obtain undue favours from public servants/politicians holding high offices. The FIR was registered under Sections 8, 9, 13(2) and 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 read with section 120B of the Indian Penal Code, 1908 against certain accused persons.
According to the petition, Sathish was not named as accused in the FIR.
Later ED lodged a complaint on March 15 2017. The ED filed its complaint on October 23, 2017, under Section 45(1) PMLA against five accused persons and Sathish was cited as a prosecution witness between October 2017 and September 2018, the petitioner was summoned by the CBI as a witness and appeared before it on at least six occasions.
In March 2021, CBI filed an application before the Trial Court seeking to provide his voice sample of Sathish for comparison with calls purportedly intercepted by the Income Tax Department on (accused) Moin Akhtar Qureshi's phone numbers. In this application, the Petitioner is described as a suspect. The application does not reflect any basis for treating the petitioner, thus far a "witness", as a "suspect", the petitioner said, who also mentioned the trial Court order dated October 26, 2021, allowing CBI's application.
The petitioner, therefore, sought intervention by the High Court to quash and set aside FIR dated February 16, 2017, and all proceedings emanating therefrom in so far as they relate to the Petitioner, including Order dated October 26, 2021, passed by the trial court.
( With inputs from ANI )
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