Sitting judge may probe Snoopgate scandal
The central government had so far failed to get a retired judge to head the probe commission
New Delhi: Just as Priyanka Gandhi has upped the Congress pitch in launching a direct attack on BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi over the alleged unauthorised snooping in Gujarat, the UPA-II government in its last leg is making a last ditch effort to go ahead with setting up of a judicial panel to probe the allegations.
Clearly, if the UPA-II government manages to appoint the probe panel, it would mean that the judicial panel will continue to carry on its probe even when the next government comes to power. Top sources said the Union home ministry is planning to go to Union Cabinet to tweak its earlier decision and instead of a retired judge has decided to appoint a sitting judge of a high court to head the panel this time.
The union law ministry will simultaneously be writing to the Allahabad high court to appoint a sitting judge to head the commission. Incidentally, the fresh attempt of the central government to set up the snoopgate panel comes at a time when the Lok Sabha elections are underway and less than a month is left for the process to conclude.
It may be recalled that despite repeated attempts, the central government had so far failed to get a retired judge to head the probe commission as mandated by the cabinet three months ago, leaving it in an embarrassing spot.