In a major setback to D.K. Barik, Superintendent of Police of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) who had been charge sheeted in a bribery case, one of the co-accused has become approver in the case against him, sources said today. Bhupinder Singh, one of the co-accused in the case, last month moved an application before a special court seeking to become an approver in the case. Special Judge Gurdeep Singh granted Bhupinder Singh, a businessman, pardon and recorded his statement as an approver in the case on August 24. The court has ordered that Bhupinder Singh would be examined as prosecution witness during the trial of the case.
It is noteworthy that in June 2015, the CBI had charge-sheeted its own senior officer D.K. Barik for a corruption case. As per this case, Nirvikar Singh, a former RAW employee and former ADC (aide-de-camp) to Punjab Governor, had conspired with DK Barik, superintendent of police of the CBI, to help Bhupinder Singh, accused in a corruption case registered in 1999. The deal was fixed for ₹ 30 lakh. Bhupinder Singh, a resident of DLF Phase II, Gurgaon, was an accused in CBI case no. RC-5(A)/ 1999, CBI, ACB, Delhi, which was under trial in the court of special judge at the Patiala House court in New Delhi. Nirvikar Singh was having an old acquaintance with Bhupinder Singh. Nirvikar impressed on Bhupinder that CBI officer DK Barik can provide him relief in the final outcome of his case as Barik was in charge of the Sub-Directorate of Prosecution, CBI Delhi, and as such he supervised all under-trial cases of CBI in Delhi. The above bribe amount of ₹ 30 lakh was to be paid in two instalments to Barik through Nirvikar Singh. At the time of payment of first instalment of ₹ 15 lakh, the CBI registered a case against its own officer D.K. Barik, middleman Nirvikar Singh and the businessman Bhupinder Singh.
Now, Bhupinder Singh is learnt to have turned approver against the CBI officer Barik in the above case. According to court sources, Bhupinder Singh told the court that he has given bribe to former ADC (aide-de-camp) to Punjab Governor Nirvikar Singh in lieu of getting relief in a separate case pending against him. It is alleged that Nirvikar Singh took the money on behalf of Barik in return for providing relief to Bhupinder Singh in the above case pending against him in Patiala House court in New Delhi.
On 16 September 2015, the CBI told the court that sanction against Barik has yet not been received and the matter regarding sanction was pending with the department of personnel and training. The CBI sought one month time for getting sanction to initiate proceedings against Barik. The court granted time to the probe agency and fixed the matter for October 16.
CBI, the anti-corruption body of the Central Government, had received bad name due to this case. There have been some other cases of corruption also against its own officers. The allegations against former CBI Director Ranjit Sinha have also attracted a lot of media attention for his alleged meetings with accused persons in coal scam and other cases and the Supreme Court has recently appointed former Special Director of CBI M.L. Sharma to look into allegations against Sinha (see: Supreme Court nod to probe into ex-CBI chief’s role in coal block scam cases).
