Shimla: Union steel minister Virbhadra Singh and his wife Pratibha Singh were granted bail in a corruption case by a special court here today and were also exempted from personal appearance in the matter.
After the hearing public prosecutor Jiwan Lal Sharma let the media know that the conditional bail had been granted to the couple who gave an undertaking that witnesses in the case would not be influenced.
The case came up before special judge BL Soni and a copy of the challan (charges) made out by the prosecution was handed over to the union minister and his wife. In response to an application the judge exempted the two from personal appearance before listing the next hearing in the case for 5 March.
The case pertains to a prevention of corruption case made out by the state vigilance and anti corruption bureau after taking cognizance of telephonic conversations allegedly recorded in the early 1990’s, an audio CD of which was made public by Vijay Singh Mankotia, a former congressman and cabinet colleague, just before a crucial parliamentary bye-election in May 2007.
A case was registered on 3 August, 2009 against Virbhadra, whose has been chief minister for five terms, since 1983. The union minister had challenged both the registration of the case and investigation before the High Court but after his plea for a CBI investigation in the matter was turned down on 1 October, the police were permitted to place the chargesheet before the special court.
The contentious CDs are alleged to contain conversations that Virbhadra Singh and Pratibha Singh had with deceased bureaucrat Mohinder Lal, in which alleged references to illegal money transactions are said to have been made.
Putting up a brave front outside the court, Virbhadra Singh termed the case made out to be political scores. “Such things are not new for me. It is just political vendetta by the Prem Kumar Dhumal led BJP government against me. I will come out clean, said Virbhadra.
Photo by: Amit Kanwar
As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads a team of media professionals at Hill Post.
Spanning a career of over two decades in mass communication, as a Documentary Filmmaker, TV journalist, Print Media journalist and with Online & Social Media, he brings with him a vast experience. He lives in Shimla.
Thank God he didn’t make the much maligned ‘V’ sign !
There is no religeon of any of the polticians. When Mr. Vijai Singh Mankotia was the Minister in the Vir Bhadra Singh Cabnet, he had been praising him very boldly. When Mr. Mankotia was dropped from Ministery on sealing by the constitutional amendment keeping the ministery upto some mark, the same Mankotia broadcasted the so called CD in air through a Private TV Channel. There is no sourse of CD from where it had come. It is much intrested that during the period the so called conversation recorded, there was no CD recording. Who recorded the so called conversation, no body knows. Who gave the CD to Mr. Mankotia , no body knows. This is all drama seems to have been concocted as a poltical vendatta by Mr. Mankotia, when he was dropped from Ministery. Sita Ram Dhiman, Sr. B.S.P. Leader Himachal Pradesh, and Vice President, Shimla District BSP, HP.
Sita Ram Ji,
Greetings ! As you too are also associated with politics, i ask you this same question as when you joined BSP then why didn’t you ask Mr. Mankotia about CD and its source? or perhaps you would have created a debate out of this issue….As Mr. Mankotia too was associated with BSP for some time..
Himachal is a tiny state in scams and scandals, the big large scale units are well operating in bigger states of INDIA where senior leaders from all ruling parties are at higher (3G ) level of corruption .. downloading currency notes @ 420 Tera bytes per second..
In case you quoted for politics —There is no religion for any politicians….
add this one from my side —–>
Yesterday I was a politician.. Today I’m a politician… Tomorrow I’ll probably still be a politician… oh god..thank you so much.. i am worthy of looting public …keep me a politician for ever 😉
They both get punished thats the true fact of politics and the moto for the new age potics and government is “to the corrupt ,for the corrupt and by the corrupt”.