CBI asked to file fresh report in Aseemanand case

NEW DELHI - After the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) failed to file a detailed report on how a confessional statement of Swami Assemanand - who is allegedly involved in the 2008 Ajmer blast - was made public, a Delhi court Tuesday asked the CBI director to file a fresh report in the case.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Bansal said: “The CBI report is incomplete. I had asked the director of CBI to file it, why is he not here? The CBI director will have to file a fresh, detailed report by Feb 25, without fail.”

The CBI had filed a two-page report - incomplete, according to the court - before the court refuting the claim by Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) activist Devender Gupta that it had leaked the confessional statement to the media.

“The CBI had not released a press statement to media containing Swami Aseemanand’s confessional statement made under section 164 CrPC,” the agency said.

A Delhi court was to pass an order on a plea for registering an FIR against a CBI officer and Tehelka magazine owner and editor for making public Swami Aseemanand’s confession to a court about his alleged role in the Ajmer blast case.

Gupta, arrested for his role in the 2008 Ajmer Dargah blast, is currently lodged in Delhi. He contended that an offence of a serious nature had been committed with the leakage of the confession made by Aseemanand accepting that Hindu activists were to blame for a string of bombings in the country.

The confession was recorded in Delhi by a metropolitan magistrate Dec 18.