Narayanasamy downplays meeting with CBI Director

Chennai: UPA government has never interfered with CBI investigation, Union Minister V Narayanasamy said today amid controversy over status report of coal scam probe and downplayed his meeting with the agency Director on the eve of it filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court. “I am the minister in-charge of CBI. There was a function to honour serving and retired officers and he (CBI Director Ranjit Sinha) came and invited me formally,” the Minister of State for Personnel said.[caption id=“attachment_731445” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Minister of State for Personnel V Narayansamy. Image courtesy PIB[/caption] The ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions is the administrative in-charge of the CBI. Narayasamy said he not only attended the function, but also spoke there besides giving away awards and later having dinner there. “Coming and inviting a minister is a formality. If anybody raises objection, then no minister can meet an officer,” he said about the meeting. In Delhi, CBI Director Ranjit Sinha too dismissed questions about his meeting with Narayanasamy saying there is no bar on such interaction with the minister. “He is our minister. What is the harm in meeting him. There is no bar from meeting him. I keep on meeting him. This is routine work,” he said. Speaking to reporters at the airport here hours after CBI filed an affidavit in Supreme Court stating that the agency’s status report on coal allocation scam was “shared” with Law Minister Ashwani Kumar “as desired by him” and that senior officials of PMO and Coal ministry had seen it, Narayansamy said the government never interfered with the agency’s investigation. “The bottomline is that we never interfered with CBI investigation. I have been Minister (for CBI) for three years. I have never interfered. Our government never interfered (but) I don’t know what happened during BJP regime,” he said. Narayansamy claimed the government never interfered with CBI investigation and also ruled out Kumar’s resignation over the matter. On the controversy surrounding the leaking of draft report of the JPC on 2G scam, he said he did not know who did it and had, therefore, made an appeal that its chairman PC Chacko should ask Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar to order an iqnuiry. “It is a matter to be investigated,” he said. PTI