Ranjit Sinha had tested positive for Covid yesterday.
Ranjit Sinha, a former CBI chief who presided over some of the most controversial years of the investigating agency, died early today. He had tested positive for Covid yesterday.
Ranjit Sinha, 68, was a Bihar cadre IPS (Indian Police Service) officer of the 1974 batch.
Mr Sinha headed the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) force, the Railway Protection Force and served at senior positions in the Central Bureau of Investigation in Patna and Delhi before his appointment as CBI chief in 2012.
The CBI said in a statement that it was deeply saddened, and offered condolence to Mr Siha's family. "Our heartfelt condolences are with the bereaved family in this hour of intense grief. May his soul rest in peace," said Praveen Sinha, acting director, CBI.
Mr Sinha was in charge of the CBI in 2013, when the Supreme Court famously described the agency as a "caged parrot that speaks in its master's voice".
Reacting to the damning descriptor, which has stuck to the CBI for years, Mr Sinha said at the time: "Whatever Supreme Court said is correct."
He was investigated for allegedly misusing his power to stymie an inquiry into a corruption case involving bribe-giving in the allocation of coal fields to private firms.
The swindle was executed when a Congress government led by Manmohan Singh was in power.
On the Supreme Court's direction, the CBI registered a case against its own former chief in 2017 to investigate his alleged meetings at home with the accused in coal scam cases.
When he was CBI boss, another scandal erupted when he refused to accept a closure report in the disproportionate wealth case against former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and ordered a reinvestigation that eventually resulted in closure.
A 132-page confidential investigation report was leaked and an inquiry was ordered into the leak.