No personal allegations against Modi, SC tells suspended Gujarat IAS officer

Modi baiters’ personal allegations against the former Gujarat chief minister’s conduct will not be entertained, the Supreme Court has made clear, while hearing suspended Gujarat IAS officer Pradeep Sharma’s plea seeking that cases against him registered by the Gujarat government be transferred to the CBI. The SC will pronounce its decision on Sharma’s petition on Wednesday but on Tuesday, when Sharma’s lawyers attempted to bring up the issue of alleged snooping on a woman in Gujarat, allegedly by then home minister of Gujarat Amit Shah and allegedly at the behest of Narendra Modi, the SC bench would have none of it. According to a report in The Times of India the bench said: Y_ou should not ride a high horse. Do not go back to the personal allegations in an indirect manner. You made a clear and conscious statement in 2011 that you do not want to make the faintest of personal allegations. It is a gentleman’s word to the highest court, Please honour it." [caption id=“attachment_1661863” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PM Narendra Modi will visit US in September. PIB[/caption] Sharma faces five criminal cases including one for his alleged involvement in a land scam in 2008 in Rajkot. He has asked the Supreme Court to order the transfer of his cases to the CBI, citing alleged harassment and vindictiveness by the Gujarat government. Earlier too, on 6 August, the SC had said “scandalous allegations” made by Sharma against Modi must be deleted. According to a report on NDTV,_ the court said Sharma was “illegitimately linking four criminal cases filed against him in Gujarat to what he describes as insider knowledge of how a young woman architect was spied upon, allegedly on the instructions of Mr Modi while he was chief minister of the state.” The bench on Tuesday made it clear that it is not concerned about personality and political dispensation of the government at the Centre and that it will go only by the rule books. “We will only go by rule books. Which government comes and which government goes hardly makes a difference to us. But we are making it clear that we won’t allow you to raise the issue as you had yourself agreed to delete those paragraphs from your petition(relating snoopgate),” it said.