Stanford (US) : Under attack from the Opposition for describing the deal between Vasundhara Raje’s son and Lalit Modi as a “commercial transaction”,
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said assessing authorities would continue to do their job in probing the matter.
“I have never used such a word. That is never part of my domain,” Jaitley told reporters when asked about the opposition’s charge that his remarks that the loan given to Dushyant Singh by Modi, the former IPL chief, was a commercial transaction, amounted to giving “clean chit” to the BJP MP.
“That is clear misinterpretation of (what I said). Whatever various assessing authorities in India have to do, it is their job. They would continue to do that,” Jaitley said on the sidelines of a public event at the Stanford University.
Singh, son of Rajasthan Chief Minister Raje, has been under attack over media reports that his company received Rs 11.63 crore in investments from Modi in 2008.
Jaitley, commenting on the controversy, had said, “I do not want to comment on him (Modi), but it is a commercial transaction between two individuals.”
The Congress had immediately attacked Jaitley with Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad saying, “It is a clear-cut cover-up. We charge the Finance Minister with influencing the Enforcement Directorate probe in Raje’s son Dushyant Singh and Lalit Modi’s case.
” Azad wondered as to what made the Finance Minister give a “clean chit” to Raje’s son and Modi, when the ED, which comes under his ministry, was still probing these “shady transactions” of “ill-gotten black money”.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Raje have been facing flak for “helping” Modi in procuring travel documents in the UK, a country which he has made his home to avoid legal processes in India.
