Meat exporter Moin Qureshi is taken by ED officials to the patiala house court in New Delhi after his arrest. (Express Photo by Amit Mehra/Files) Meat exporter Moin Qureshi is taken by ED officials to the patiala house court in New Delhi after his arrest. (Express Photo by Amit Mehra/Files)

The Enforcement Directorate in its complaint has recorded the statement of a “witness” who claims to have paid more than Rs 1 crore to meat exporter Moin Qureshi to get bail for his friend in a CBI case through the then CBI director Ranjit Sinha. According to Satish Sana’s statement in the complaint, Qureshi assured him that he had discussed the bail matter with the “boss (Sinha)”. He also said that “for his satisfaction”, they would meet at Cladridges hotel at Janpath, where Qureshi would ask him to wait while he met Sinha at his residence on Janpath.

Sana, a Hyderabad-based businessman, claimed to have met Qureshi to help his friend Sukesh Gupta, the then director of MBS Jewellers, who was arrested by the CBI in December 2013 for allegedly causing loss of Rs 194 crore to Minerals and Metals Trading Corporation by “fraudulent transactions and deceitful conduct”.

In his statement to the ED, Sana recognised audio conversations between him and Qureshi regarding his “friend Sukesh Gupta’s case with the CBI”, who was in jail. In the statement, Sana said: “For the same, day before, I along with Sukesh Gupta’s brother met Moin Qureshi at his office in Defence Colony January 24, 2014, fixed for the hearing of the case… and case documents handed over to him. For the same Moin Qureshi is conveying (in audio conversation) that the papers he has given to boss (Sinha). Moin Qureshi was saying that he would go again in the evening and ask him for the present status. We were asking Moin to help through Sinha to get Sukesh out on bail.”

Sana is believed to have met Qureshi again and told him that he had met Sinha and conveyed the facts. According to his statement: “I should not worry. The things will be sorted out. Boss (Sinha) had assured that Sukesh will get bail as boss (Sinha) had directed his men (CBI officials) not to oppose the bail.” Sana reportedly also met Qureshi with his friend politician Shabbir Ali, after which Qureshi met Sinha.

According to the complaint, Sana said the bail was not granted for the next three months and alleged that Sukesh Gupta’s brother had already given Qureshi Rs 85 lakh. “The bail was granted on merit. That is why we did not pay any further to Moin Qureshi. But he started calling my minister friends and harassed me in front of them, and I felt irritated and gave him Rs 25 lakh more in two instalments. Thereafter I did not talk to him while he kept on calling,” he said, according to the ED.

When contacted, Sinha said, “I don’t want to comment.”

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