Additional solicitor general (ASG) Harin Raval has been asked to resign after he accused attorney general (AG) Goolam Vahanvati of trying to influence the CBI report on the coal blocks allocation scam and of misleading the Supreme Court, in a letter addressed to Vahanvati and marked to law minister Ashwini Kumar.

Senior advocate UU Lalit will replace Vahanvati in representing the centre in the SC, according to Zee News’s sources.

Raval, who is representing the CBI in court, wrote:

… on 6th March, 2013, while I was in Court, I received a message from your end, asking me to see the Law Minister at 12.30 with the Status Report. The message received by me was forwarded to the Joint Director, CBI by me. You were already present there when I reached slightly late. You would also kindly recall that at the said meeting, during the course of discussions, the draft of only one of Status Report of one of the preliminary inquiries was shown to the Hon'ble Law Minister and was perused by him as well as by you. Certain suggestions were made, including by you, to the CBI, some of which were accepted. No suggestions emanated from me

After Raval had earlier submitted in court that the CBI report had not been vetted by anyone in the political executive, CBI director submitted a personal affidavit asserting that the report had been shared with Kumar and prime minister Manmohan Singh.

Raval said he was being made a “scapegoat”.

Yesterday the Caravan in a feature dissected Vahanvati's allegedly politicised role as AG and whether he has succumbed to pressures from the top.

Read full letter via NDTV