The Hindu : Opposition to focus on `gross abuse of CBI by Govt.'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 21, 2003

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Opposition to focus on `gross abuse of CBI by Govt.'

By K.V. Prasad

The Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, with the Leaders of the Opposition parties at her residence in New Delhi on Sunday. — Photo: V.V. Krishnan

NEW DELHI JULY 20. A unified Opposition is set to bring on Monday, the first day of Parliament's monsoon session, an adjournment motion.

The Opposition would demand an explanation from the Government on the Central Bureau of Investigation move to drop conspiracy charges against top BJP leaders such as the Union Ministers, L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, among others in the case being heard by a trial court. The decision was taken at a meeting this evening at the residence of the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi. The leaders of most Opposition parties, including the Nationalist Congress Party chief, Sharad Pawar, and the former Prime Minister, Chandra Shekhar, were present.

Briefing presspersons later, the Congress spokesman, S. Jaipal Reddy, said all the leaders were "outraged at this development... a gross abuse of CBI by the Government".

He said this meant that Mr. Advani and other leaders would not be tried at all for their "involvement in the demolition".

"All the Opposition parties have been arguing for three years that the continuation of L.K. Advani as Home Minister would result in miscarriage of justice with regard to this criminal case. All worst fears of the Opposition have come true." Besides focussing on what it viewed as a `sabotage'' of the case by the CBI, the Opposition short-listed a host of issues including the controversial Taj heritage corridor project, frequent train accidents, the action taken report (ATR) on the Joint Parliamentary Committee report on the stock market/Unit Trust of India scam, Tehelka and Gujarat's Best Bakery case acquittal. On the stock market/UTI scam, Mr. Reddy said there was a "huge contradiction" in the ATR, submitted by the Government on the last day of the budget session, and the unanimous recommendations of the JPC. The Best Bakery case, he said, "represents the decay that has set in the criminal justice system". Separately, the CPI (M) parliamentary party leader, Somnath Chatterjee, criticised the Gujarat Government for not appealing against the acquittal of the accused in the case.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal chief, Laloo Prasad Yadav, predicted that this session would be the last sitting of the 13th Lok Sabha. The Samajwadi Party president, Mulayam Singh Yadav, charged that democratic institutions were under attack. He said the Opposition had decided to move in a coordinated manner inside Parliament in taking on the BJP-led NDA Government.

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