Court Accepts CBI Clean Chit to Rakesh Asthana in Bribery Case

The special court’s judge, Sanjeev Aggarwal said there was not sufficient material against Rakesh Asthana.

File image of CBI’s former Special Director Rakesh Asthana.

(Photo: PTI)

On Saturday, 7 March, at Rouse Avenue Complex, the CBI special court took cognizance of CBI's charge sheet which had given clean chit to Rakesh Asthana and Devendra Kumar.

The case is famously known as ‘CBI vs CBI’. The said charge sheet was filed by the CBI against Manoj Prasad.

The special court's judge, Sanjeev Aggarwal, said there was not sufficient material against both Asthana and Kumar.

Asthana has always maintained that the FIR filed against him by Alok Verma, then head of CBI, was “fabricated”.

The CBI had filed a charge sheet against Prasad on 11 February 2020. At present, Asthana is the head of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS).