Hubballi: Asserting that the Income Tax raids on Energy Minister, D K Shivakumar, had vindicated his stand against him, Samaj Parivarthana Samudaya (SPS) president, S R Hiremath on Thursday appealed to the Union government to make sure the investigation was supervised by the Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) looking into black money in the country.
Charging that the previous Governor, H R Bharadwaj had failed to act against the Minister despite his repeated pleas, Mr Hiremath said he had later written a 197 page letter with “irrefutable documentary evidence” against Mr Shivakumar to PM Modi three years ago. “I welcome the move to rein in such corrupt elements even though political motives cannot be ruled out in these raids. The Centre has shown political will in acting against Shivakumar and in taking the issue to the logical end. I complained about him to the Prime Minister in October 2014 with relevent documents and sent copies of them to Union Law Minister, Ravishankar Prasad, AICC president Sonia Gandhi, vice president, Rahul Gandhi and CM Siddaramaiah,” said the activist, who has taken down many a powerful politician in the past.
Mr Hiremath attacked the Modi government for the CBI's failure to appeal against the trail court letting Ms Aruna Laxmi, wife of BJP leader, Janardhan Reddy, off the hook in the illegal mining cases against him. Pointing out that SPS counsel, Prashant Bhushan had questioned the serious lapses of the CBI in the Supreme Court, he said it had now directed the CBI to submit a status report to it.
Also coming down hard on the Centre for its failure to act against Mr Reddy for his “vulgar display of wealth” during his daughter's wedding, he regretted that no Central agency had bothered to probe the source of the money spent on the occasion.
