Centre to appoint ex-judge for Snoopgate probe

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, May 2, 2014: The Centre appears set to open a new war front with the BJP by making known its firm resolve of appointing a retired judge by May 16 to probe alleged  snooping on a young woman architect at the behest of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said the government would appoint a retired judge to probe the Snoopgate case and two other incidents before the results of the 16th Lok Sabha elections are declared on May 16. “The government would very soon appoint a retired judge. The Union Cabinet has taken a decision to appoint a judge on the snooping case … the matter is in process,” Shinde was quoted as saying in an agency report from Shimla.

The sudden aggressive push by the Centre to corner Modi has taken BJP leaders by surprise while the Congress seems to be relishing the opponent’s discomfiture.

“Once the commission is set up, there is no saving Narendra Modi, because there is documentary evidence of what he (Modi) has done and how he has snooped on the activities of a young girl,” Law Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters here on Friday.

Reacting to the move, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley dubbed the Centre’s move as a “desperate act” and said that the future NDA regime would reserve the right to review any such “malicious” decision.

“They are trying desperately to get at least one judge to agree to head the Snoopgate commission. I doubt very much if any of these moves is likely to succeed. Even if it did, the future government would be well within its legitimate rights to review such a malafide last-minute decision of the UPA,” Jaitley told reporters.

In November last year, two web portals had claimed that Modi’s aide Amit Shah, as junior home minister in Gujarat, had in 2009 ordered the illegal surveillance on a young woman architect at the behest of “Saheb”. Congress leaders claim that the “Saheb” is none other than Modi. As the controversy gathered steam, the Gujarat government ordered an inquiry into the revelations by the two web portals.

However, the Centre was not ready to let Modi off the hook and decided to set up an inquiry under the Commissions of Inquiry Act. Since the Gujarat government had already ordered a probe into the incident, the Centre clubbed two other instances of snooping involving Virbhadra Singh allegedly at the behest of the then BJP government in Himachal Pradesh and the leaking of call data records of Jaitley to press for its own probe into the affair.

Congress spokesman Anand Sharma dubbed as “literally intimidating” the remarks made by Jaitley that he would be surprised if some judge would agree to “lend” himself to the Snoopgate inquiry. “This is, in fact, threatening or conveying a message that none should dare to get into this or inquire into it,” Sharma said.