The Government and Congress on Wednesday rejected the BJP charge of hatching a conspiracy and misusing CBI to implicate its leader Gulab Chand Kataria in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case. They launched a counter offensive accusing the Opposition of having double standards in judging the investigation agency.
“Whenever any question is posed against them (BJP), whenever any difficulty comes to them, they always say this. But, you have seen that we do not do any politics on this — on CBI,” Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said when asked about BJP leader Arun Jaitley’s charges regarding this.
Similar views were expressed by Congress spokesman Shakeel Ahmad, who said that when the CBI acted against former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal’s nephew Vijay Singhla, the BJP said that it is right but when the same investigating agency probed its leader Kataria then Opposition is terming it as the Congress Bureau of Investigation. It just shows the double standards of BJP, he said.
Reminding that the Court is looking into the matter and it was on the Supreme Court’s direction only that the matter was shifted out of Gujarat, he said that if anyone feels that someone is wrongly implicated then they can approach the Court which will look into the matter.
Pointing out that the Supreme Court in 1997 in the Vineet Narayan case had said that the CBI should be made autonomous and the NDA came to power in 1998, Shakeel said that the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government during its six years regime had remained sitting idle and now the BJP is preaching from a high pedestal. “This is just laughable.”
Unlike the BJP, the Congress is highly sensitive to the Supreme Court’s observation and takes its cognisance. It was evident from Ashwani Kumar’s resignation even before the Supreme Court judgement in the coal scam issue came and a GoM was constituted to make CBI independent, he pointed out. He claimed that if the Court gives critical observation on PM and Home Minister also then the party will take it very seriously. But, when asked about whether the party will force the PM to step down if the Court gives adverse comments, Shakeel parried it saying that it was a hypothetical question and such thing would never happen.
When asked about Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee making similar charge in the past, he said that till the time it was part of UPA Mamata never made this allegation but now as an opposition party she can say anything. About Samajwadi Party Mulayam Singh’s comment to similar effect, Shakeel said that efforts would be made to correct such misgivings.
However, on BJP’s charge about law Minister Kapil Sibal favouring Vodafone as his son Amit had represented the company, Shakeel said that since Sibal became Telecom Minister his sons never took up any matter of telecom companies. Moreover, the Vodafone matter came in 2012 so there is no question of Sibal’s son having any role in it.