Author: Kartikeya Tanna
Publication: Niticentral.com
Date: June 28, 2013
URL: http://www.niticentral.com/2013/06/28/cbi-playing-congresss-devious-game-in-ishrat-jahan-case-96776.html

(Part I dealt with the evidentiary value of the calls allegedly made between Vanzara and Shah and Modi’s residence. This part will deal with the meeting which allegedly took place between top guns of Modi government and Singhal)

The other aspect is the alleged meeting between the Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, the law officers, MoS (Law) Pradeepsinh Jadeja and a CMO official who, according to the CBI, discussed ways to sabotage the ongoing investigation.

The reports try to draw two inferences from this: One, that the Advocate-General’s words indicated an attempt to sabotage the investigation; and secondly, that “top guns” of Modi government were involved in this obfuscation.

First, Chudasama is not just the Education Minister, but is also the Law Minister. Both NDTV and Tehelka, deliberately or otherwise, did not bother to mention that. Pradeepsinh Jadeja is his junior minister. The CMO official, GC Murmu, is in charge of legal matters affecting the state government.

These individuals are, in a way, their political and administrative bosses. Therefore, if the progress of a case is bound to affect the top echelons of the State Government, it is obvious that the law officers discuss strategy with the two Law Ministers and officials in charge of legal matters.

Second, assuming that the AG did advise everyone to claim that the SIT is fake if it holds that the Ishrat encounter was fake, how is that “sabotaging” the investigation? The AG and his political bosses can shout all they want. Arguably, it may not be in concurrence with the dignity of the office he holds, but how does that amount to “sabotaging” the investigation? Tehelka, it seems, is rather generous with words. It is the court which has to decide whether the SIT is fake or otherwise.

Third, and most importantly, the CBI has come to know of this meeting because one of the IPS officers who actually committed the encounter, GL Singhal, has secretly recorded this conversation between the individuals in November 2011. This date is crucial.

Tehelka says, and Sreenivasan Jain ignorantly repeats, that Chudasama, the Education Minister, attended that meeting. The fact which seems to have missed Tehelka and Jain’s impeccable research is that Chudasama was not even an MLA in November 2011, forget being a Minister. He had lost the Dholka seat in the 2007 Assembly election. It is only in December 2012 that he won and was sworn in as a minister. One wonders how he could have attended that meeting as a “top gun” of Modi.

So much for research! Readers may check this link to verify.

Moreover, if Singhal has, indeed, said that Chudasama was one of the attendees, his claim stands seriously suspect due to this discrepancy.

Legal ramifications

What are the legal ramifications of this status report and the corresponding chargesheet, if media reports are believed to be true? Two crucial ones, in my view.

First, it gives CBI an excuse to arrest and seek custody of Amit Shah behind bars and keep extending his judicial custody on grounds of incriminating testimonies. This obviously hampers Amit Shah’s electoral mission in Uttar Pradesh for the 2014 Lok Sabha election and, indirectly, helps the Congress.

Second, it also gives CBI basis to grill Modi and then selectively leak bits and pieces to create sensation through media coverage.

These ramifications need to be seen in another interesting context. Amid the cacophony that one saw in the NDTV debate last night, the most instructive aspect was when Mukul Sinha, the lawyer for one of the deceased Javed Sheikh, commented that the fact that CBI was not arresting so many people chargesheeted in various encounters showed that the “UPA Government was at its weakest”.

When Digvijay Singh objected to Sinha’s lament by saying that UPA does not interfere with CBI’s decisions, Sinha replied, “It does”.