Should not have called officer a ‘mole’, Supreme Court raps CBI director Ranjit Sinha

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday took strong exception to CBI Director Ranjit Sinha tarnishing the image of a senior officer by calling him a mole, which was also objected to by the agency, which sought direction to the top cop to withdraw the statement.

A bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu refused to give credence to the submission of Sinha's lawyer on the issue after advocate Prashant Bhushan also told the court on oath that he did not receive any information from DIG-level officer Santosh Rastogi.

"You are not supposed to tarnish the image of a person at the instruction of your client. You are pinpointing towards a person. You are justified in saying that there was an insider but you should not have named the person," the bench said.

Interestingly, the argument regarding mole was made by the top cop's lawyer yesterday but it went unnoticed and the issue was raked up today after CBI counsel K K Venugopal placed before the bench media reports on the previous day's proceedings.

Venugopal criticised Sinha's stand taken by his counsel Vikas Singh and urged the court to direct him to withdraw the statement.

"Yesterday's statement was not right that the officer is a mole in the CBI. If there is any evidence then it must be produced. The statement must be withdrawn as the officer needs protection," he said.