ED pours cold water on SAD wildfire, may quiz Majithia again
Friday, 06/02/2015
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JALANDHAR: Even as the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) started celebrating on Thursday after rumours that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had given the clean chit to Punjab revenue minister Bikram Majithia in the multi-crore drug racket, the ED later burst the bubble by the evening.
“What chit? Where is the chit?” said ED assistant director Niranjan Singh, the case’s investigating officer whose transfer has been stayed by the high court, as he came out of the agency office at Jalandhar, counter-questioning the media.
Rubbishing the reports as rumours and a “mysterious strategy to divert the probe”, ED officials said that Majithia could, in fact, be summoned again before a chargesheet is filed. There was no question yet of giving the clean chit to the minister, who was interrogated by the ED for nearly four hours on December 26, as the investigation was yet to go towards what he had said, said ED officials. “Majithia was questioned only once. He is yet to give some details, so nothing is clear. No clean chit can be given or even charges be framed with such a small investigation,” added an ED official from the agency’s headquarters in Delhi.
There are also plans to send a team to Canada from where some NRIs used to operate the racket, the official told HT.
As for Majithia, he could be summoned again specifically to verify the statements of three prime accused, Varinder Raja, Sukhjeet Sussa and Bittu Aulakh. Statements of Aulakh, an Akali leader from Amritsar “who had remained associated with the minister politically”, would be a key point whenever Majithia, brother-in-law of deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, is summoned again, said the official on the condition of anonymity.
Officials saw the rumours as a ploy to affect the probe particularly since the Punjab and Haryana high court has extended the stay on transfer of Niranjan to Kolkata till February 26.
