Alleged tutoring of witness by inquiry official
New Delhi : After media reports that the enquiry officer investigating missing files in the Ishrat Jahan case “tutored” a witness, senior Congress leader and former Home Minister P Chidambaram has claimed that his stand had been vindicated.
The Congress also latched on to these media reports and charged that the Modi Sarkar can go to any extent to malign and defame the opposition parties and leaders. “Now that the facts are out in the open, we demand that the Supreme Court should step in and ensure that the cause of justice is not derailed further,” said party spokesperson Anand Sharma.
The controversy related to the Ishrat Jahan case dates back to the period when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat and Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed in an encounter. This is a major political controversy with the BJP alleging that Chidambaram, then union home minister, had changed the affidavits at the instance of Congress president Sonia Gandhi to create an impression that Ishrat Jahan was not a terrorist, although the first affidavit is claimed to have mentioned this detail.
Both Chidambaram and the Congress have maintained that the affidavits have not been changed, and the substantive issue in this case is whether the encounter in which the four persons, including Ishrat, were killed is fake or genuine? The BJP has maintained that the main issue is whether Ishrat and those killed along with her were terrorists or not?
A media report on Thursday suggested that the enquiry officer, additional Secretary (Home) BK Prasad, who submitted his report on the missing files, had said in a recorded conversation said that the witness Ashok Kumar was “tutored”. In this recorded conversation, Pras-ad was heard telling on phone questions he would ask and also suggesting the answers.
Commenting on this report, Chidambaram said: ‘‘The five ‘missing’ documents completely vindicate the position I had taken. The sequence of events conclusively establishes that we had acted in a totally transparent manner. The moral of the story is that even a doctored report (of the Inquiry Officer) cannot hide the truth.”
But the union minister of state for home Kiran Rijiju said: “Unfortunate steps were taken by Chidambaram, probably Congress made a mistake and they realized it.”
