CBI Caught Lying Under Oath, Altered Files, Delhi HC Orders Criminal Complaints Against Six CBI Officers

Six Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officers submitted a false statement under oath to a trial judge, manually altering internal file drafts to mislead the court and keep hold of seized documents belonging to former Indian Revenue Service officer Ashok Kumar Aggarwal, contemporaneous official note-sheets have revealed.

The systemic deception came to light after internal files showed that officials within India's premier federal investigative agency deliberately deleted inconvenient facts from legal submissions to manipulate ongoing judicial proceedings before the Special Judge.

How the Agency Fabricated Claims in Court

On 2 August 2016, the agency filed a formal, sworn response before the trial court opposing the return of personal and official documents seized from Aggarwal during a disproportionate assets inquiry. In that written reply, the agency asserted that correspondence with its administrative ministry, the Department of Personnel and Training, was active and underway regarding further legal remedies.

However, internal agency note-sheets establish a contrasting reality. On 19 July 2016—weeks before filing the sworn reply—the administrative ministry had formally turned down the agency's proposal to file a Special Leave Petition against Aggarwal after the High Court declared his prosecution sanction invalid.

Initial file drafts prepared by officials accurately recorded the ministry's refusal. Before submitting the response to the court, officials struck out the refusal and inserted a handwritten assertion stating that administrative correspondence was active.

Note-Sheets Expose Systemic Fabrication

Examining the successive drafts and note-sheets, Justice Madhu Jain observed that no active correspondence existed between the investigative agency and the ministry on the date the affidavit was submitted. The agency had merely initiated internal discussions about seeking a higher legal opinion, a routine internal process that officials falsely presented to the judge as ongoing ministerial communication.

"These circumstances disclose substantially more than the mere failure of a party to establish a contention," Justice Jain noted, holding that the altered drafts established a clear basis to infer that the officers participated in advancing a claim known to be inconsistent with existing facts.

The court ruled that altering official file-notings to present a false picture to a court constitutes perjury and dishonest representation under Indian penal provisions, rather than a mere administrative oversight or imprecise choice of words.

Six Officials Face Prosecution for Perjury

The High Court established that six officers—Sushil Dewan, Vineet Vinayak, Amit Kumar, Raman Tyagi, Prem Kumar Gautam, and Md. Azad—were directly involved in preparing, altering, vetting, processing, approving, and filing the deceptive response.

Setting aside a trial court order from October 2025 that had declined to take action, the High Court allowed Aggarwal's application under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Justice Jain directed the Special Judge to frame a written criminal complaint against all six officers within four weeks and transmit it to the Chief Judicial Magistrate (Central) at Tis Hazari Courts. The Magistrate will now revive the complaint proceedings to examine the roles, knowledge, and intention of the concerned officials under Sections 191, 193, 209, and 290 of the Indian Penal Code.