Date:23/12/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/23/stories/2004122307471100.htm

National

Congress hopes Supreme Court will take note

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, DEC. 22. The Congress today said it hoped the Supreme Court and the Gujarat Governor would take note of the latest revelation through a sting operation that a Bharatiya Janata Party MLA in the Best Bakery case had allegedly paid money to witness Zahira Sheikh.

Reacting to the report that Madhu Shrivastva allegedly held negotiations with Zahira's family and also offered money only proved that the BJP as a political party in power did not uphold the rule of law.

The Congress spokesperson, Anand Sharma, said he hoped that the apex court, which is already seized of the matter, took note of it. The party refrained from making any demand about what action it would prefer to seek against the State Government beyond insisting that the State Governor's report be awaited.

Responding to a volley of questions whether the Congress thought if Gujarat was a "fit case for imposing President's rule," Mr. Sharma re-asserted that the Union Home Ministry would have to take a view on the report of the Governor.

"The Narendra Modi Government had lost the moral right to continue even on earlier occasions — — the carnage and later when Supreme Court passed strictures against the State Government," Mr. Sharma said.

The party reminded the BJP that it was the then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who talked of `Raj Dharma.' He charged that the BJP in power had not upheld the rule of law or performed its constitutional duty during the "shameful bloodbath,'' and subsequent events confirmed it.