Mallika Sarabhai lashes out, accuses Modi govt of bribing her lawyers

Mallika Sarabhai in a series of television interviews has drawn swords with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi accusing his government of having tried to bribe her lawyers. “CM tried to bribe lawyers to dilute riots case against government” she told CNN IBN. [caption id=“attachment_86417” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Archive picture of Mallika Sarabhai in Ahmedabad. Reuters”]  [/caption] This was after she had come out strongly against Modi for spending tax payers’ money on his fast. She is feeding slum children on these three days as a juxtaposition to what she considers to be a ‘circus’. “What we are hearing today in Gujarat is the word upwaas. It means salutation to God. It’s a personal thing. Fast unto death is political act, upwaas is a private thing. Why is he spending tax-payers money on his personal thing? This is a political circus going on in the name of unity,“Sarabhai had said a few days ago. NDTV tweeted–“Mallika Sarabhai:Sreekumar affidavit says Modi told him to bribe my lawyers.” Riot victims are also now asking, why it took the chief minister to come out and say he understood the feelings of the people of Gujarat. Here is the video of Mallika Sarabhai from CNNIBN alleging Modi of bribing her lawyers. Sarabhai in an interview with CNNIBN said, “My sources say that the money was handed by Modi to Sanjiv Bhatt to give it to Amit Shah, who in return was supposed to hand it over to my lawyer Krishnakant’s office. Krishnakant has sweared that he knew nothing of it.” The social activist said that the sum of ten lakhs was given to Tushar Mehta, who is a junior lawyer. She alleged that the money was shared between Tushar Mehta and her advocates on record, Agarwal and Associates, so that information could be passed to Modi and their defence could be strong. Sarabhai claimed that the Gujarat CM tried to bribe her lawyers to dilute her petition against the government. She added that the issue must go beyond Nanavati Commission as Modi committed the biggest criminal contempt of court by using government fund to bribe lawyers. However, former state Intelligence Bureau chief R B Sreekumar, distancing himself from the disclosures made by Mallika Sarabhai, today said the copy of affidavit handed over to media by the noted danseuse here was not his. “The copy of affidavit being circulated is not mine. Its content as told by Mallika Sarabhai to media could be true to some extent. I have submitted a 10-page affidavit to the Nanavati commission, which includes three annexures making it a 63 page document,” he said. Challenging the veracity of the affidavit copy handed to media persons by Sarabhai, Sreekumar said, “Was the copy of so called affidavit circulated to media a certified copy taken out from the Nanavati commission? “The long and short of the story is that Gujarat Chief Minister had called a meeting and asked me to handover Rs 10 lakh to Sanjiv Bhatt, so I handed over the money to him,” he said. “The Chief Minister and Sanjiv Bhatt were in direct communication, so I am not aware what happened,” he added. Earlier in the day, Sarabhai accused Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi of using public funds to “bribe her lawyers” in an attempt to derail proceedings of the PIL filed in the Supreme Court by her in the 2002 communal riots case in the state. She also handed over a three page document to media persons, claiming it to be the affidavit submitted by Sreekumar to G T Nanavati and Akshay Mehta Commission, probing the 2002 Gujarat riots, in support of her allegations.