CBI affidavit: Cornered UPA braces itself for SC rap

These must be the most damning sentences substantiating the old charge of the interference of the political executive in the functioning of the CBI. These assume special significance coming from no less than the CBI director Ranjit Sinha himself. “In respect of the query raised by this Hon’ble Court about sharing of the contents of the Status Report dated 8th March, 2013 with the political executive, I submit that the draft of the same was shared with Hon’ble Union Minister for Law and Justice as desired by him prior to its submission before this Hon’ble Court. Besides the political executive, it was also shared with one Joint Secretary-level officer each of Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of Coal as desired by them,” Sinha submitted in his affidavit to the Supreme Court today. His submission was in connection with the coal allocation scam, possibly one of the biggest in the country.[caption id=“attachment_732257” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] CBI director Ranjit Sinha. Image courtesy PIB[/caption] The government will not find it easy to convince the Supreme Court on 30 April that the sharing of the draft status report with the Law Minister Ashwini Kumar, the PMO and the coal ministry officials was an innocent act. It would also find it hard to explain away that the people concerned did not make any changes to the document or offered no oral or written instructions. The legality of it, no doubt, will hurt the government the most, perhaps more than it ever did to the Union government in the recent past but the more critical aspect is the consequent political fallout. The government would be aware that Parliament is in session and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Law minister will have to respond to opposition’s venomous charges. It’s not that the government is not aware of the rising sensitivity of the issue, particularly in an election year. Otherwise, the top leadership of the Congress would not have met twice in the day, first in the morning in Parliament trying to take allies on board and second in the evening, preparing for a strategy to counter the opposition’s combined onslaught. So far, there has not been a word from those concerned in the government, the prime minister, law minister and the Department of Personnel that exercises administrative control over the investigative body. After days of coaxing by the media, Ashwini Kumar spoke only these saintly words, “Truth will prevail”. As minister of the country he is under oath to ensure that the truth must always prevail but then the question is how does he want to see the truth or wants other to see the truth? Unfortunately for him, the law minister alone will not decide the truth in this case. The truth, whatever of it has come out, is not comfortable for him. Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, describes it as “an act of shamelessness”. Senior counsel and Aam Admi Party activist Prashant Bhushan and Deputy Leader of BJP in Rajya Sabha Ravi Shankar Prasad are for once on the same side, saying that the CBI director’s affidavit “conceals more than it reveals”. Janata Party president Subramaniam Swamy says the fact that the CBI director went to law minister’s office to discuss and share the status report with him and the PMO and the coal ministry officials is “contempt of Apex Court”. The CPM, Trinamool and other opposition parties too have joined the chorus with similar barbs against the government. The news break that the status report was vetted separately by the law minister and the PMO has brought the functioning of Parliament to a complete standstill since the time it opened after the recess for the second half of the Budget session on Monday. The opposition, particularly the BJP, is on warpath on the twin issues of Coalgate and 2G, demanding removal of the law minister and the prime minister, and the government on its part is in no mood to oblige. There are speculations that given the legal and constitutional sensitivity of the matter in the apex court, Ashwini Kumar may be sacrificed by the Congress leadership but that could further toughen the opposition’s stance on their demand for prime minister Manmohan Singh’s removal from office. Singh had been coal minister for substantive part of the period under scrutiny and all coal allocations during the period bear his signature. Also, the PMO official vetted the CBI status report on Coalgate. It must also be remembered that he is also minister-in-charge of CBI and has the overall administrative control over the investigative agency. The prime minister exercises his control through Minister of State V Narayansamy. CBI director Ranjit Sinha’s statement dismissing questions about his meeting with Narayansamy a day ahead of filing the affidavit in Supreme Court saying there is no bar on such interaction with the minister, thus becomes significant. “He is our minister. What is the harm in meeting him. There is no bar from meeting him. I keep on meeting him. This is routine work,” Sinha said. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath’s rather bold defence of the law minister, the PMO and the coal ministry officials asking the CBI to share its report since much of the content of the report was provided by them and had to ensure that it was appropriately recorded, is sure to add further fuel to the fire when Parliament meets on Monday. But then the question arises: were not the PMO and the coal ministry actions under investigation? Was it fair to “share” the report with those against whom the CBI was investigating the matter? Will CBI extend similar privileged to others too? The opposition will not let go this opportunity to target the government.