Veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi on Thursday deposed before a special CBI court in the Babri mosque demolition trial and pleaded innocence and claimed that he was implicated in the case by the then Congress Government at the Centre. He dubbed the prosecution witnesses in the case as “liars”.
While making his statement under section 313 of the CrPC through video conference to the court of Special Judge SK Yadav, the 86-year-old leader accused the then Congress-led Central Government of “falsely” implicating him in the case out of “political vendetta”.
Former Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani, 92, too is slated to depose before the Lucknow court through video links from New Delhi on Friday.
“The entire investigation was conducted under the political influence and he was charged on the basis of false and fabricated evidence,” Joshi told the court.
At this, the judge asked him why then the prosecution witnesses have deposed against him and Joshi retorted, “All the witnesses are liars. They have deposed due to political reasons and under the influence of police.”
During the court proceeding, the court posed as many as 1,050 questions to Joshi and he replied to each one of them.
As the judge sought Joshi’s comment over various pieces of evidence led by the CBI on the basis of different video clipping and newspaper cuttings, the former Union HRD minister said the entire evidence is “false and fabricated”.
During the proceeding, Judge Yadav apprised Joshi of the statement of a CBI witness, in which he had averred that Kalyan Singh was sworn in as UP chief minister on June 25, 1991 and went to the Ram Janmabhoomi site in Ayodhya the next day along with his Cabinet colleagues.
The judge told Joshi that, according to the CBI witness, at the Ram Janmabhoomi site in Ayodhya, Kalyan Singh had pledged for building the temple at the very place, chanting “Ram Lala Ham Ayenge, Mandir Yahi Banayenge (Lord Ram, we will come and make the temple here itself)”.
The judge then asked Joshi to explain the statement of the CBI witness. Joshi replied that it was true that Kalyan Singh had gone to Ayodhya but, he said, the rest of the averment of the prosecution witness was false.
The judge also showed Joshi a photograph taken on June 26, 1991 at the Ram Janmabhoomi premises, in which he is seen standing with the then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh and asked the BJP leader to explain it.
Joshi dubbed the photograph as “fake”, pointing out that there was no negative of the photograph on the CBI records. The photograph was handed over by one Swapna Das Gupta to the CBI during the investigation.
The judge also referred to many newspaper reports on alleged statements of former Dy PM Advani and Shiv Sena late chief Bala Saheb Thackeray on Ram Janmabhoomi issue and sought Joshi’s response to them. Joshi asserted that the relevant news items were false and were made part of the investigation by the CBI due to “political malice and ideological differences”.
Joshi told the court that he would present evidence in his defence at the appropriate stage of the trial.
After Joshi completed his deposition to the court, Judge Yadav asked his office to send a copy of his statement to the CBI in New Delhi. The CBI will then get Joshi’s statement signed by him in New Delhi and send it back to the court in Lucknow. The court recorded Joshi’s statement in the presence of his counsel Vimal Kumar Srivastava, K K Mishra and Abhishek Ranjan.