EARTH NEWS SERVICE|
New Delhi, Dec 08 |15: It is political “sacrilege” not political vendetta, said Dr Jitendra Singh in response to Rahul Gandhi’s allegation that the court ruling in the National Herald case was part of ruling party’s political vendetta against Gandhi family. Speaking to media persons outside the Parliament House here today, Dr Jitendra Singh said, “it is a sad day for Indian democracy when the member of a party, which has ruled the country for over half-a-century, goes to the extent of questioning the very independence and wisdom of a court ruling and resorts to extra-judicial means to absolve himself from court proceedings against a case of criminal financial fraud. The question now is, whether the Congress Vice-President, who also happens to be a Prime Ministerial aspirant, can get away with such an unwarranted outrage against judiciary which could, in fact, amount to contempt of court, he asked. Dr Jitendra Singh, whose two Bills listed for discussion in the Rajya Sabha today, could not be taken up because of repeated disruptions, said, the nation will not allow itself to be fooled by the manner in which the Congress leadership is trying to acquire a halo of martyrdom by invoking the name of Indira Gandhi or by trying to project itself as being a victim of conspiracy even when there is a prima facie case of financial fraud which the court has described as “serious imputations smacking of criminality”. This is also a reflection of the sub-conscious mindset of the Congress Party which thinks of judiciary as a tool that can be tinkered with by the ruling party, said Dr Jitendra Singh and added, this is also an inadvertent confession of the manner in which the Congress Party has been trying to pressurise the judiciary for its benefits when it was in power. However, he said, BJP is committed to the independence of judiciary as well as the independence of all the constitutional institutions and does not follow the approach of vindictiveness. Referring to Congress Party’s opposition to the Whistleblowers’ Protection (Amendment) Bill, introduced by him in the Parliament, Dr Jitendra singh retorted that all the amendments in the Bill had , in fact, been endorsed by the UPA government itself and were recorded in the minutes of a Cabinet meeting held under the Chairmanship of the then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on the 1st of August 2013. The matter of fact is that these amendments were brought in by the then Leader of Opposition (LOP), Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley and were agreed upon by the then ruling party also but since it was the last day of the last session of the Parliament, these could not be passed which, in other words, means that now the Congress is opposing the Bill simply because it has been brought in by a BJP-led government.
