Amar, Ahmed Patel get House panel clean chit in cash-for-vote

The Parliamentary committee set up to probe the 8220;cash for vote8221; scam has given a clean chit to Rajya Sabha MPs Amar Singh and Ahmed Patel...

The Parliamentary committee set up to probe the 8220;cash for vote8221; scam has given a clean chit to Rajya Sabha MPs Amar Singh and Ahmed Patel, who were alleged to be instrumental in offering bribes to BJP MPs Ashok Argal, Fagan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Bhagora for voting in favour of the government or abstaining during the July 22 vote of confidence.

The committee, which tabled its 466-page report in the Lok Sabha on Monday stated: 8220;As there is no case against Shri Ahmed Patel and there is no clinching evidence against Shri Amar Singh, there is no occasion for the committee or the House to make a request to Rajya Sabha requiring the said two members to appear before the Inquiry Committee for evidence.8221;

In addition, the panel recommended that its findings about the roles of Sanjeev Saxena, Singh8217;s purported assistant, Sudheendra Kulkarni, a close aide of L K Advani, and Suhail Hindustani, a BJP activist assisting in the sting operation, may be probed by an 8220;appropriate investigating agency8221;.

Reacting to the committee report, AICC spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that it was for the Parliament to decide what to do with it, while BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad criticised the report saying, 8220;Legal options are open to us.8221;

Allegations about Patel8217;s involvement hinged on the claims of Argal and Kulaste that when they went to meet Amar Singh at his residence on July 22, the SP leader had put them on phone to talk to Patel.

The committee report said nobody had claimed to have talked to Patel face-to-face and it couldn8217;t be proved that the number dialled from Singh8217;s house belonged to Patel. Argal and Kulaste admitted having never met Patel and that they did not recognise his voice. The committee, therefore, concluded, 8220;His alleged complicity in the episode is based entirely on presumptions and surmises.8221;

The BJP MPs had claimed that SP MP Rewati Raman Singh had first contacted them on behalf of Amar Singh, whom they met the next morning. After this, Sanjeev Saxena delivered an advance sum of Rs 1 crore. The committee noted that there was 8220;nothing on record beyond reasonable doubt8221; that Raman Singh was at Argal8217;s residence as Singh8217;s emissary.

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The committee found 8220;no direct evidence8221; against Amar Singh and was 8220;inclined to discount8221; the video clip of a car entering and coming out of Singh8217;s house because it did not show the faces of the occupants of the rear seat.

Kulkarni had said in his deposition to the committee that there was no record of the conversation between BJP MPs and Amar Singh in the latter8217;s house, as CNN-IBN, which was roped in by a BJP leader to do a sting operation had advised them not to carry any recording devices.

As for Saxena8217;s alleged links with Singh, the committee examined the documents in which Saxena had described his designation as a service manager at Singh8217;s residence. However, this did not 8220;lead to any conclusion that Shri Sanjeev Saxena delivered the money to the said three members as an emissary of Amar Singh,8221; said the committee.

Meanwhile, Ashok Argal told The Indian Express: 8220;Amar Singh, Rewati Raman Singh and Sanjeev Saxena should be subjected to narco-test. When this Parliamentary panel didn8217;t have the powers to summon Amar Singh, a Rajya Sabha member, how could they then give him a clean chit?8221;