Regarding claims that Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, received black money from India’s wealthiest industrialists, the Lokpal of India on Friday declined to consider a complaint against them.
The accusations against the PM were deemed “ex-facie far-fetched” by the Lokpal.
The allegation focused on Modi’s remarks made on May 8 at a campaign event in Karimnagar, Telangana, where he questioned the Congress of receiving “tempos of cash” from Indian billionaires Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani.
The anti-corruption body defended the tone and content of the speech in question, characterizing it as ‘purely an election propaganda for cornering the opponent by putting a quiz to him based on presumed or so to say fabricated facts’ and verging on’surmising and conjecturing’.
According to the Lokpal, there was no evidence of corruption on the Prime Minister’s side in the address.
This could be compared to engaging in shadow boxing. By no standards, however, such a suppositional questionnaire can be regarded as having revealed any information replete with verifiable allegations of corruption against another public functionary warranting intervention by the Lokpal.”
A full bench consisting of retired Justice AM Khanwilkar as the chairperson, retired Justices Ritu Raj Awasthi, L Narayana Swamy, and Sanjay Yadav, as well as Members Sushil Chandra (who was previously the Chief Election Commissioner), Pankaj Kumar, and Ajay Tirkey, passed the order.
The argument that PM Modi did not act on information from the government’s intelligence wing in regard to the charges was rejected by the Lokpal.
“This allegation is ex facie farfetched…For, there is no such reference in the text of the subject speech that the speaker had received or gathered such factual information from the intelligence sources either formally or informally. In our opinion, even this allegation cannot take the matter any further, considering the text of the speech – being entirely an expression of surmise and conjecture or hypothetical questionnaire.”
Thus, the complaint against PM Modi was rejected at the threshold as “untenable.” It was further declared to be worthless and founded on immaterial information.
As a result, the Lokpal denied the complaint, which also called for an investigation into Gandhi, the two industrialists, and unidentified tempo owners.
“The case made out in the complaint against these persons is founded on unreal and unverifiable facts about their complicity in commission of an offence of corruption,” it stated.
It was stated unequivocally that the Lokpal would ‘hesitate to move against any such persons who are prime facie complicit’ in corruption, regardless of their rank, and would not otherwise be focused on technicalities.
