A sex CD, which has been circulating in the social media sites, finally took its toll with lawyerturned- Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi resigning from a parliamentary panel
OUR BUREAU New Delhi
A sex CD row, which
has been raging for the past 10 days and which 53- year- old lawyer- turned- Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi tried to address with a High Court injunction, finally took its toll on Monday.
Singhvi has resigned as both Congress spokesman and chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Justice. He wrote to Sonia Gandhi, informing her of his decision to quit the two positions, but not as a member of the Rajya Sabha.
In a statement describing the CD as canard and baseless allegation, he said, ‘I have resigned only to prevent even the slightest possible parliamentary disruption regarding the purported CDs being circulated about me. Since I am a disciplined party soldier, I did not think it fit to subject the party to any inconvenience on this account.’The resignation has come on the eve of resumption of Parliaments budget session and the BJP wonalt39t let Singhvi escape so easily, especially in view of him allegedly promising a judges post to the lady lawyer in the sleazy CD. Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley was quick to assert that it is a serious matter and Singhvi owes an explanation since he headed a parliamentary panel.
After the word about the CD spread, Singhvi was taken off the roster of the Congress spokespersons who hold press briefing in the AICC headquarters every alternate day.
The partys media department chairman and General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi heaved a sign of relief that Singhvi had ‘taken the right step by resigning’to spare the party the ignominy of removing him.
Defending himself in the statement, Singhvi asserted that the allegations of inappropriate conversations in the CD were baseless. ‘People inimically opposed to me, who have assiduously spent over 10 days hearing,seeing, amplifying and distilling the CD have found no vestige of any reference, not even remotely, to any illegality, corrupt practice, or wrongdoing. ‘Specifically, some sections of the print and visual media are spreading a falsehood simply by repetition and hearsay that there is reference in the CD to the promise of any post. No one has heard any such reference in the CD. There is none simply because it does not exist. It is pure imagination, wishful thinking and sensationalism.”As a political or professional class, instead of gleefully watching, promoting or participating in a persons natural and understandable discomfiture, we must respect privacy issues,’Singhvi asserted.
‘Either the CD is morphed or it is not. In either event it raises no public interest issues, yet evokes salacious private and prurient interest and contumacious Internet violation of a flagrant kind.’Singhvi said the canard was spread simply to give the issue a public interest flavour, since otherwise the contents of the CD, ‘assuming them to be true, ( which they certainly are not), would disclose only something private and consensual giving a cause of action only to aggrieved family members ( who have stood completely by me) and to no one else.'( The lady who figures in the CD purportedly shot in his Delhi High Court chamber has also not reacted.) A prominent senior advocate and son of late jurist L M Singhvi, a former High Commissioner in London, Abhishek acquired a high profile last year when the standing committee ( from which he resigned) headed by him gave recommendations on the Lokpal Bill, many of which were accepted by the government.
He said it was lamentable that canards were being spread about a CD, which has, in fact, been accepted thrice over to be ‘fabricated and morphed.”The drivers disclosure statement to the police, his detailed written statement in the high court and his oral statement recorded on oath physically in the presence of the judge, all explain how and why he created this fabrication.
A reputed m
