The anti-corruption body Lokpal has disposed of a plea seeking an investigation against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, and industrialists Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani over an election campaign speech made by the Bharatiya Janata Party leader in May.
While addressing a Lok Sabha poll rally in Telangana’s Karimnagar on May 8, Modi had asked whether the Congress was receiving money from Adani and Ambani.
“How much amount has been collected by the Congress from Adani and Ambani for the elections?” he had asked. “How many bags of black money have been collected? Have the tempos filled with currency notes reached the Congress?”
Based on these remarks, a complaint was filed before the Lokpal on May 9 seeking an investigation into the allegations against Modi.
The Lokpal is an anti-corruption body authorised to investigate corruption charges against top public functionaries including the prime minister, Cabinet ministers, MPs and Group A officials at the Centre.
The complainant accused Modi of “failing to inquire into the matter based on information gathered by him from the intelligence wing of the government”.
Under the Lokpal Act, the identity of the complainant cannot be disclosed.
Calling the allegations against Modi “ex-facie far-fetched”, the Lokpal held that the remarks were “an expression of surmise and conjecture or hypothetical questionnaire”.
“The tenor of the speech borders on surmising and conjecturing; and is purely an election propaganda for cornering the opponent by posing a questionnaire to him based on assumed or so to say fictional facts,” said the Lokpal while dismissing the plea.
In its eight-page order, the anti-corruption body avoided naming the prime minister but observed that “it is the duty of the Lokpal to thoroughly inquire into the allegations of corruption against public servants”.
“The Lokpal without being fixated by technicalities, would not hesitate to proceed against all such persons who are prime facie involved in commission of an offence of corruption – placed howsoever high,” it said.
It also dismissed the plea seeking an investigation against Gandhi, unknown tempo owners, Adani and Ambani as “unreal and unverifiable facts about their complicity in commission of an offence of corruption”.
The order was passed by the full bench of the Lokpal headed by retired Supreme Court judge AM Khanwilkar.
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