NEW DELHI: A war of words broke out in a special CBI court on Friday between two investigating officers (IO) in the bribery case in which former CBI director Rakesh Asthana was given a clean chit recently. While former IO A K Bassi, appearing after a direction, accused current IO Satish Dagar of shielding “big names” despite clinching evidence, Dagar retorted saying Bassi was acting on a “presumption” and never showed up when asked to assist in the probe on multiple occasions.Appearing before special CBI judge Sanjeev Aggarwal, Dagar accused Bassi of making “personal allegations”. The judge, after hearing both men, intervened and remarked, “Don’t wash your dirty linen in public.” He also said that both officials would be called in future, if required, but not together.CBI had recently filed a chargesheet concluding that there was no connection between Asthana and the alleged middleman Manoj Prasad, and no evidence to prove that the former CBI director ever demanded or received a bribe to save Hyderabad-based businessman Satish Babu Sana in a money laundering case related to meat exporter Moin Qureshi During the proceedings, however, the court inquired about the status of investigation in the Moin Qureshi case. “Two guardian angels of CBI are involved in the case... How much time will you take to investigate the Moin Qureshi case where the two guardian angels, the two bosses, are involved? That case is Bhagirathi (sic),” the court remarked.Earlier, Bassi claimed that on the day he handed over the charge of the bribery case, he was accused of filing a false FIR against Asthana. “The clinching evidence present in phone of Rakesh Asthana was never seized. From day one, he (Dagar) is working to give clean chit to Rakesh Asthana… There are WhatsApp messages.”The former IO also claimed that nothing was asked about the messages lying in Prasad’s mobile phone. “When Sunil Mittal (Prasad’s father-in-law) was examined, he was under the influence of alcohol as per the CFSL report,” he added.Mittal and Prasad’s brother Someshwar Srivastava are also involved in the case.Following Bassi’s statements, Dagar responded: “And how does he know about all this? We would definitely like to know. How is he infiltrating the investigation?”When Bassi said the details were in the newspapers, Dagar countered by saying “it never came out in newspapers”.The current IO further accused Bassi of having “made personal allegations on his integrity”. He said, “I have better antecedents than him in the organisation.”According to Bassi, during interrogation, Prasad admitted that he was in touch with special secretary R&AW Samant Kumar Goel and disclosed numbers of Srivastava in London, Singapore and Dubai. “He refused to divulge anything how CBI officials received money,” Bassi said.Asthana and DSP Devender Kumar, who was arrested in 2018 in relation to the bribery case and later got bail, were given a clean chit owing to lack of evidence to make them accused.Bassi said that following Kumar's arrest on October 22, 2018, he made a proposal for carrying out searches at Asthana's residence and office premises. “But that file never came back to me,” he said.On October 23, 2018, he said, the Delhi high court was informed that CBI required Asthana’s mobile telephone and all electronic record lying in his possession and that he be directed to preserve the record. “There is an order that he should preserve the record,” said Bassi.The former IO also said that at the time of handing over the case, he told Dagar that Asthana’s mobile has to be seized because there is clinching evidence. “There is an eight-page secret note of intercepted calls handed over to the current IO. It clearly says money was exchanged. Clearly mentions Rakesh Asthana,” Bassi claimed.Dagar responded, “We’ve intercepted 11,381 calls, it is before the court. We haven’t shut the case. He (Bassi) hasn’t brought any evidence. He is acting under a presumption.”