Author: Dilip Singh
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: February 15, 2002
The CBI will have to seek other
alternatives to trace the origin of the alleged forged letter Cabinet Secretary
T R Prasad wrote to Prime Minister's Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra
on Air India's disinvestment. The reason being that the Congress party's
chief whip Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, who raked up this controversy in the
Lok Sabha, has refused to face interrogation.
The CBI had registered a regular
case under Sections 466 and 471 of the IPC and had written to Lok Sabha
Speaker G M C Balayogi, seeking his permission to question the MP. Dasmunsi
had read the forged letter aloud in Parliament on August 23.
"The process of disinvestment of
Air India has been facing numerous problems, especially in the area of
according security clearance to one bidder and thereafter having the process
become a single-bidder system along with the issue of investment advisers'
role," the introductory paragraph of the contentious letter said. It ended
by stating, "it is being felt in certain sections of Government and Parliament
that the Government is engaged in an exercise to give away a valuable asset
rather than extract value from it..... The Hon'ble Prime Minster may like
to take a view on how we need to proceed in this case.
The Speaker's office, said CBI sources,
had informed the agency that Dasmunsi was not willing to be questioned
by "any government agency outside the House."
Speaking to The Indian Express,
Dasmunsi said: "There's no question of my appearance before the CBI. I'm
answerable to the Speaker and not the CBI. The CBI investigation is a fraud.
Before completing the probe they have already given the verdict that the
letter was forged," he added.
