Author: Virendra Kapoor
Publication: Afternoon Despatch
& Courier
Date: October 4, 2004
Introduction: Railway minister on
a self-exoneration mission
The RJD boss and railway minister
is not all that innocent as he would like you to believe he is. For, behind
that rustic exterior lies a very crafty mind. Now, from the moment he joined
the government Yadav, the foremost target of the opposition ire over the
tainted ministers, has been single-mindedly engaged in wiping off the stain
of corruption and criminality against him.
He first got the income tax official
hearing the cases against him and his wife, Rabri Devi, chief minister
of Bihar, replaced by his own hand-picked nominee. The latter lost no time
in giving Yadav and Rabri Devi a clean chit in all income tax cases pending
before him. The claim of the Yadavs that they had earned an income of tens
of lakhs of rupees over the years from selling milk from cows kept in the
official residence of the Bihar CM was accepted in toto by the new IT officer,
even though it was public knowledge that neither Yadav nor his wife Rabri
had sold milk ever since he had become a legislator over two decades ago.
The IT department did not deem it
fit to file an appeal against this palpably one-sided order passed with
supersonic speed by the newly-appointed member, judicial, of the income-tax
tribunal.
Again, there was no mistaking the
hand of Yadav in the overnight reversal by the IT Department of the earlier
decision to grant complete immunity to the main approver in the over Rs
1,000-crore fodder scam. The IT department issued notice to the said approver
raising huge demands towards unpaid taxes within weeks of Yadav assuming
the charge of Railway Ministry. The CBI case against Yadav in the fodder
scam depends crucially on the evidence of the said approver.
But to ensure that the fodder scam
was buried a million fathoms deep, Yadav also ensured the overnight removal
of the earlier CBI prosecutor in both Bihar and Jharkhand in the animal
husbandry scam. A retired deputy superintendent of Delhi Police was appointed
prosecutor in the case even though his experience as a lawyer was negligible.
The above 'facts' are cited in a
PIL filed in the Supreme Court which seeks the cancellation of the bail
granted to Yadav in the fodder scam. Given that the above actions constitute
a grave threat to the independence of the IT department proceedings and
CBI's and prosecution processes, and in view of the fact that no refutation
of these charges in the PIL had been forthcoming officially, the matter
is fraught with grave political significance for the UPA Government.
