Delhi Water Minister Kapil Mishra said on Tuesday that he feared he could be arrested by the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) which has summoned him on July 4 regarding the Rs400-crore water tanker scam that he exposed.
“I have come to know from reliable sources that the ACB is planning to arrest me at the earliest. They want to arrest me as early as possible,” Mishra told journalists.
Mishra has earlier on Monday tweeted, “last evening direct message from PMO to l-G & from l-G to Meena — get Kapil Mishra arrsted at earliest. Crime exposing Shiela Dixit.”
On June 24, Mishra tweeted, “Clear instructions to all BJP leaders — Don’t say a word against Shiela Dixit. Shiela Dixit knows too much about someone in BJP.”
Addressing a Press conference, Mishra said the ACB, which is under the Central Government, had summoned him for questioning regarding the scam which took place during the previous Congress regime in Delhi.
“Why is the BJP after us and not Sheila DikshitIJ” asked Mishra, adding that he was not afraid of going to prison. “My fight against corruption will continue even if I am sent to jail,” he said. “ACB is not calling Sheila Dikshit for questioning in the Rs400 crore water tanker scam, instead they registered an FIR against (Chief Minister Arvind) Kejriwal and summoned me for questioning,” said the Minister, adding, “This shows they want to use this report politically.”
Mishra said he had submitted the entire fact-finding report of the water tanker scam with all proof against Dikshit to lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung, but no action against her was being taken.
“The Vigilance Department has sent 38 cases to ACB to file an FIR but it did not file any case. They are only targeting the AAP Government and the l-G using the ACB as a caged parrot. No progress has been seen in three FIRs filed by the first AAP Government against former CM Sheila Dikshit or her colleagues in the last 2.5 years.
“No action has been taken in the Commonwealth Games Streetlight scam, in which an FIR was lodged in February 2014 by the first AAP Government. The l-G has not taken action on evidence, FIRs or any of the 50,000 complaints that his office has received so far during his tenure. However, he has taken action on a single page plain paper complaint with no evidence filed by BJP’s Vijender Gupta and filed for action against our Government,” said Mishra.
He alleged the ACB was targeting the AAP Government Ministers and officers.
“We had filed three FIRs against Sheila Dikshit in different matters but the ACB did not take any action against her,” Mishra said.
The AAP Government in June 2015 constituted a five-member fact-finding committee to probe the irregularities in hiring some 385 stainless steel water tankers by the Delhi Jal Board in 2012 during Dikshit’s rule.
Reacting to Kapil Mishra’s statement, Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay said, “We can quote an old Hindi idiom chor ki dadhi mein tinka (a speck in the beard of a thief) has come true.”
He said the BJP has failed to understand that if the AAP Government have done nothing wrong then why they fear enquiry.