The CBI has booked its own special director Rakesh Asthana for allegedly taking bribes from middlemen to give relief to a businessman being probed by him in a case involving meat exporter Moin Qureshi, officials said on Sunday.

The CBI action comes two months after Asthana, the second-in-command in the CBI, wrote to the cabinet secretary on August 24 alleging that the businessman had paid CBI director Alok Verma Rs 2 crore to get relief in the case.

The matter was referred to the Central Vigilance Commission which is looking into the allegations.

While allegations and counter-allegations were flying thick and fast from the camps of CBI bosses, the agency booked Asthana on charges of criminal conspiracy, corruption and criminal misconduct in a first-of-its-kind case.

Gujarat-cadre IPS officer Asthana is heading the special investigating team handling crucial cases such as AgustaWestland chopper scam and alleged loan fraud by business tycoon Vijay Mallya. The team is also probing the Qureshi case.

Besides Asthana, the agency has booked deputy superintendent of police Devender Kumar, other officials and Manoj Prasad and Somesh Prasad, the purported middlemen.

They have been booked under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The CBI said that under these sections, no prior permission was needed from the government to initiate a probe against an officer.

An FIR was registered by the anti-corruption unit of the CBI based on claims made in the complaint by Sathish Babu Sana, a Hyderabad-based businessman, who had narrated before a magistrate his alleged meetings with various middlemen in New Delhi as well as Dubai.

He has alleged that an investment banker, Manoj Prasad, had assured him that he would get relief from the CBI summons if he agrees to pay Rs 5 crore as bribe.

Sana has also alleged that he was assured by Prasad that his brother Somesh manages investments of Asthana in London and he is in touch with two other senior officers of various agencies.

The statement recorded before a magistrate is considered a confession and in case the complainant withdraws, the prosecuting agency is well within its rights to file a perjury case.

Prasad was arrested by the agency on October 16, when he was returning from Dubai to allegedly collect an instalment of the bribe.

According to the CBI, it has detected five alleged payments to middlemen by Sana — Rs 1 crore on December 10, 2017, Rs 1.95 crore on December 13, 2017, Rs 25 lakh on October 10, 2018, and two instalments of 25,000 dirham and 3,000 dirham on October 14, 2018.

The CBI claims that it has corroborated the alleged payments with phone intercepts, WhatsApp messages recovered from the phone of middleman Manoj and tower locations.

The complaint filed by Sana mentioned that one of the middlemen made him to listen to a voice and later told him that it was Asthana.

However, the statement does not mention any direct meeting between Sana and Asthana.

Asthana, in an exhaustive letter to the cabinet secretary on August 24, had given a list of 10 instances of alleged corruption by Verma in which it was alleged that Sana paid the CBI chief Rs 2 crore to get clean chit in the case, government sources said.