TNI Bureau: Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid is planning to sue Arvind Kejriwal for the later’s reaction in connection with a sting operation, aired by a television channel, alleging the Minister and his wife to be involved in draining off of the funds supposed to be spent for the disabled people in several districts of Uttar Pradesh .
The TV report alleged that the Union ministry for social welfare and empowerment had granted Rs. 71.50 lakh to the Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust, headed by Khurshid and his wife Louise Khurshid, to distribute tricycles and hearing aids to the disabled in 17 districts of UP.
The trust should have informed the district magistrate and the district social welfare officers to send a list of beneficiaries from the districts as per the rules, so that the money could be disbursed at the camps organized for this purpose, in the presence of the district officials. But the TV sting reports claimed that the Trust distributed the equipments under the forged signatures of district welfare officers and the camps were never held.
India Against Corruption (IAC) activist Arvind Kejriwal demanded Salman Khurshid’s resignation and his wife Louise’s immediate arrest after the report was aired. He pressed for the arrest, suspecting that once she will be allowed to remain outside, she would try to tamper with the evidence to prove the charge to be false.
Kejriwal also urged Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav to ensure that the FIR in connection with this case is registered as soon as possible to give space to the investigation to proceed in this regard.
However, Khurshid condemned the allegation and wanted to sue Kejriwal with both civil and criminal cases. Even he described behaviour of Kejriwal to be worse than ‘gutter snipes’, reported IBN Live.
In a two-page press release, Project Director of the trust and wife of the Minister termed the charges as “devoid of merit, false, malicious and baseless”.
If the charges alleged by the Sting operation report are true, it is a shame for the Minister that they even did not became reluctant to swallow share of the disables.