Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday, January 25 wrote a blog, ostensibly questioning the CBI probe in the ICICI-Videocon loan case and defending those accused. He is currently undergoing medical treatment in the US.
In the blog titled “Investigative Adventurism Vs. Professional Investigation”, Jaitley wrote, “(Investigative) Adventurism leads to media leaks, ruins reputations and eventually invites strictures and not convictions. In the process, the targets are ruined because of harassment, loss of reputation and financial costs. It costs people their career.”
He said that there was a lack of “professional investigation”, adding that conviction rates were low because “adventurism and megalomania overtakes our investigators and professionalism takes a back seat.”
Referring to the CBI probe in the ICICI-Videocon case, he said, “Instead of focusing primarily on the target, is a journey to nowhere (or everywhere) being undertaken?”
Besides shocking, the union minister’s comments about the actions of India’s premier investigative agency is embarrassing for the Narendra Modi government which came into power peddling a rhetoric of cracking down on corruption and frauds. Is the government’s ministers not in sync with its own policies?
A member of the Cabinet Committee on Security, Jaitley is not just any minister. Considering he is part of the elite super cabinet and wields enormous power, such attempts of publicly casting doubts on CBI’s motives and functioning is a serious overreach and irresponsible.
On Thursday, the CBI had booked former ICICI Bank CEO and MD Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar and Videocon group MD Venugopal Dhoot in connection with alleged cheating and irregularities in loans sanctioned by the bank to the group in 2012,
In addition to Chanda, her husband and Dhoot, the agency has also named companies Nupower Renewables, Supreme Energy, Videocon International Electronics Ltd and Videocon Industries limited as accused in the FIR registered under IPC sections related to criminal conspiracy and provisions of prevention of corruption act, they said.
It is alleged that Videocon promoter Venugopal Dhoot allegedly invested crores of rupees in Nupower months after the Videocon group got Rs 3,250 crore as loan from the ICICI Bank in 2012.
(With PTI inputs)
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