Hitting back at the Congress for disrupting Parliament over the National Herald case, the Government on Tuesday rubbished the party’s charge of ‘political vendetta’ against it and said the case was filed by a private individual and asked Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul to face the court.
“No political vendetta. A private complaint was lodged. The Government had nothing to do with it. The High Court has dismissed their case and asked them to go and face trial. Nobody in this country has immunity from law. They can challenge the orders in a higher court or face proceedings,” said Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while reacting to the Congress’ allegations.
The Finance Minister said India is not a banana republic in which Parliament or the media can decide the guilt or innocence in such matters. He maintained that the Government has no role in the case as it was filed by an individual. Government’s role is to investigate through Income-Tax Department “that we have done”, he said. “Answer does not lie in disruption of Parliament,” Jaitley said.
Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu wondered why Parliament was disrupted for something happening in the ambit of judiciary. “For something that happened in a court out of a routine judicial process, stalling Parliament is perhaps happening for the first time,” he said. Naidu also said he asked whether Congress legal luminary Kapil Sibal thought that the trial court has given its verdict at the behest of the BJP and the Central Government.
Naidu said “by stalling Parliament, if the Congress is trying to get relief in the said case, it is highly improper and unprecedented. This pitching of legislature versus judiciary is grossly improper.”
Union Telecom Minister Ravishankar Prasad sought to ask why all major corruption cases were afflicting only Congress leaders. He said all Congress corruption cases could not have been uncovered but for the court interventions and cited cases of 2-G, CWG, Coal and other scams during the Congress regimes.