Govt rubbishes misusing CBI charges

The BJP is accusing the UPA government of “misusing” the CBI for political purposes, but it was the Supreme Court that had transferred the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case from Gujarat police to the central agency in January 2010.

The BJP is accusing the UPA government of “misusing” the CBI for political purposes, but it was the Supreme Court that had transferred the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case from Gujarat police to the central agency in January 2010.

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A bench of Justices Tarun Chatterjee and Aftab Alam had then slammed the police for their “failure to carry out a fair and impartial investigation” into the killing of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi in 2005.

The government has rubbished the BJP charges over the CBI, which summoned minister Amit Shah in the case.

“These charges have been levelled on many occasions. In this politically sensitive case, the CBI has gone into investigations following court orders and it is being supervised by the central vigilance commission,” Minister of State for Personnel Prithviraj Chavan said. “Let the CBI do its job. Nobody should impute motives. We should welcome a free and fair probe.”

The Congress attacked BJP leaders, including L.K. Advani and Nitin Gadkari, for refusing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s lunch ahead of the Parliament session. The party said Chief Minister Narendra Modi appeared to have pressurised senior BJP leaders to “prevent and obstruct” the probe.

Calling it a contempt of court, Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi added that the BJP was fielding its senior leaders to “pre-empt, influence and subvert” the Supreme Court-initiated investigation.

“It has obviously sent collective shivers on the part of BJP,” he said.