The Hindu : Cabinet move not an attack on EC, says Mahajan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 19, 2002

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Cabinet move not an attack on EC, says Mahajan

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM AUG. 18. The Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Pramod Mahajan, said today that the Union Cabinet's decision to refer to the President the Election Commission's order postponing Assembly elections in Gujarat did not amount to an attack on the poll panel.

At a press conference here, he said: "It often happens that when two Constitutional institutions differ, the matter is referred to the President, and through him to the Supreme Court, for a decision and there is nothing wrong about it.''

The Minister, who had skipped a crucial Cabinet meeting today to be here sign a memorandum of understanding with the State Government on e-governance, said the order had created an "anomalous situation". Once the Supreme Court's views were known, the Government and the Election Commission would have to abide by it. It would also become a case law for the future.

Defamation suit

Hinting at the possibility of going slow on filing a defamation suit against Madhu Sharma, wife of R.K. Sharma, prime accused in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case, Mr. Mahajan said he did not propose to rush with the suit because Ms. Sharma was changing her statement everyday and he did not want the defamation case to become more important than the actual murder case.

He also wished to study the defamation law in detail because such cases tended to drag on and often resulted in the petitioner getting more defamed.

On the demand that he should undergo a DNA test to determine the paternity of Shivani Bhatnagar's child, Mr. Mahajan said it would be wrong to talk lightly about DNA tests where a four-year-old child was involved.

Normally, such tests were done when there was a dispute about paternity.

In this instance, the demand was unjust because the child's paternity was not a matter of dispute and her father himself had stated that the child was his.

On his part, he was ready to subject himself to any investigation, he added.

Asked how the BJP could claim itself to be a party with a difference when the `pump scam' and the `land scam' had proved it to be no different from the others, Mr. Mahajan said while it was true that petrol pumps had been sanctioned to several BJP functionaries, there was no merit in the allegation that the BJP was involved in a land scam.

"We are a party with a difference because we cancelled all pump allocations since January 2000. Did the Congress cancel even a single allocation made by it?'' he said.

He sought to justify the allotment of plots to institutions under the umbrella of the Sangh Parivar saying that "no land had been allotted to us during the last 50 years'.

All through these years, the Congress was sanctioning land to organisations under its wing.

There was also nothing unusual about the allotment of land at lower than market rates, he said.

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