Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday threatened to file civil and criminal defamation cases against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and other AAP leaders. It is not clear whether this would apply to BJP MP Kirti Azad as well.
Meanwhile, undeterred AAP leaders continued their attack against Mr. Jaitley over the alleged Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) irregularities.
Addressing the media from the Delhi Chief Minister’s residence, soon after Mr. Azad’s press conference where he called for a CBI probe into the DDCA ‘scam’, AAP leaders compared it to the Commonwealth Games scam with Sanjay Singh declaring “Arun Jaitley is Suresh Kalmadi of BJP.”
AAP’s Kumar Vishwas called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take the call whether Mr. Jaitley should be in his Cabinet. “Narendra Modi has to take a call else he will lose the trust of the people.”
Agencies reported that Mr. Jaitley rejected the allegations calling them a propaganda technique of AAP to deflect attention.
AAP’s Ashutosh urged that “a case should be immediately registered” against Mr. Jaitley. He too called for his immediate removal. Otherwise the AAP would launch a “nationwide campaign against this corruption.”
The AAP leaders also claimed that a DDCA officer who acted as a “whistle blower” had been regularly meeting Mr. Kejriwal in connection with the alleged corruption.
Probe panel formed
Meanwhile, the Delhi government has formed an inquiry commission into the DDCA issue, headed by Gopal Subramaniam, retired Solicitor General of India.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Azad presented a sting operation purporting to expose payment of crores of rupees to non-existent companies in the DDCA matter.
Mr. Azad alleged that money had been siphoned off by several DDCA office-bearers, both past and present, and claimed conflict of interest. He did not name any individual but claimed his was a ‘principled fight against corruption.’
“We see crores being paid to non-existent companies without specifying the nature of work done by them. We keep hearing that the Serious Fraud Investigating Office (SFIO) has only indicated irregularities but then its purpose is different. It only checks the available papers and tallies it against expense incurred. Investigation of criminal charges is the domain of the police, Enforcement Directorate (ED), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and the CBI, let them investigate and find the truth,” Mr. Azad said..
NCT Cricket Association secretary Sameer Bahadur alleged that it was incorrect for Mr. Jaitley to claim a non-executive role with the DDCA.
“Accounting Standard 18, which has to be attached to the balance sheet, mentions a company’s Key Management Personnel. For DDCA, that list includes Jaitley, SP Bansal, Chetan Chauhan, Narinder Batra, Sunil Dev, CK Khanna and a couple of others. It is signed by Jaitley, Batra and Bansal, so how can he claim to be non-executive,” Mr. Bahadur asked.
Mr. Azad also alleged large-scale rigging of legal cases and accounts. He pointed out: “The lawyer fighting DDCA’s cases in front of the Company Law Board is made a member of the same, and he passes orders on DDCA. The auditing company is now itself accused by the Registrar of Companies of window-dressing accounts. Since money has been paid to non-existent companies, more agencies must get involved to investigate forged bank accounts and tax evasion issues,” he insisted.
“Please do not try to make it into a personal or political battle, refrain from making it look like a battle between a Trojan Horse and an Achilles’ Heel,” he said.
In a 10-minute video clip from the 2011-12 Annual General Meeting of the DDCA, Mr. Azad and Mr. Bahadur are seen apprising then president Jaitley of forgery in proxy voting, financial malpractices, and fudging of audits.
