CBI questions Hyderabad businessman Sathish Sana in Rakesh Asthana bribery case, asks him to clarify 'discrepancies'

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday examined Hyderabad-based businessman Sathish Babu Sana to verify and corroborate his statement on the basis of which the agency had filed a bribery case against its Special Director Rakesh Asthana in midst of his spat with Director Alok Verma. [caption id=“attachment_5440251” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AFP[/caption] A new CBI team constituted by interim director M Nageswara Rao asked Sana to clarify “discrepancies” in his complaint against Asthana, sources said. The team was formed immediately after the government sent Verma and Asthana on forced leave on 23 October in the wake of a feud between them. Rao had reconstituted the team and transferred the members of the erstwhile team. The CBI questioned Sana to verify his 4 and 16 October statements before a magistrate under Section 164 of Criminal Procedure Code about his meetings with various middlemen in New Delhi as well as Dubai, that led the agency to lodge an FIR. The statement recorded before the magistrate is considered a confessional statement, and in case the complainant withdraws from it, the prosecuting agency can file a perjury case. An accused in the meat exporter Moin Qureshi case, Sana has sought relief from court from the repeated CBI summons issued against him. A CBI team probing a corruption case against Qureshi, which was headed by Asthana, claimed by Sana was issuing summons against him. Sana has alleged in a complaint to CBI, which is part of FIR, that investment banker Manoj Prasad had assured him of relief from CBI summons if he agreed to pay Rs 5 crore as a bribe. The Hyderabad businessman has also alleged that he was assured by Prasad that his brother Somesh manages Asthana’s investments in London, and he is in touch with two other senior officers of various agencies. Prasad was arrested by the CBI on October 16 when he was returning from Dubai to allegedly collect a part of the bribe. As per the CBI, it has detected five alleged payments to middlemen by Sana — Rs 1 crore on December 10, 2017, Rs 1.95 crore on December 13, 2017, Rs 25 lakh on October 10, 2018 and two tranche of 25,000 Dirham and 3,000 Dirham on October 14. The CBI claims that it has corroborated details of payment with phone intercepts, WhatsApp messages recovered from the phone of middleman Prasad, and tower locations to buttress its charges.