The truth has slipped out: Jaitley attacks UPA over Sinha comment

CBI director Ranjit Sinha's insistence that he was misquoted notwithstanding, Leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley has launched a full scale offensive on the UPA, saying that the 'truth has slipped out' in terms of how the ruling party is using the CBI to target its political opponents.

Jaitley was referring to an article in the Economic Times published on Saturday, in which Sinha was quoted as saying that the government would have been very happy if Amit Shah had been named in the second chargesheet of the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case.

AFP

After the article was published the CBI issued a clarification, saying that Sinha had been misquoted and insisting that the probe had been completely free of any kind of political interference.

Jaitley in a scathing blog post however called the clarification 'unconvincing' and said that the 'truth had slipped out'.

He added that it was time to 'seriously examine' the manner in which the UPA had 'used' the CBI for its own means.

He wrote:

The UPA during the period 2004-2014 mastered the art of manipulating the CBI. The CBI during this period was not controlled by the Government. Worse still, it was controlled by the ruling party. A pliable person was selected to become Director of the CBI. The CBI as an organization is driven by the Director. He has the last word. Investigating officers prepared the investigation file with the idea of inculpating or exculpating a particular person. The internal checks and balances had completely collapsed. The Directors were offered fresh jobs on the eve of retirement. A post-retirement job would be suggested to them. This would contribute to their pliability.

Jaitley also went on to trash the implications on Amit Shah over the Ishrat Jahan case, and said that even the High Court had admitted that there was no prima facie evidence against him.

He said that the Congress party had a long tradition of misusing police and investigative agencies against political opponents, adding that "The denial of the CBI Director that he made the statement which the Economic Times published is immaterial.  There is voluminous evidence available  with regard to the pliability of the CBI even  independent of his retracted statement.

Read the full blog post here.