The party leaders said, they have already approached Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to expunge references made about Rajiv Gandhi as it amounted to defaming a late Prime Minister who cannot respond.
Frontal attacks against India's first political family Nehru-Gandhis by the BJP leaders have hit raw nerves in the Congress. A day after the washed-out monsoon session of Parliament ended, acrimonious exchanges between the ruling BJP and the main opposition Congress continued unabated. Congress leaders on Friday attempted to turn tables on Arun Jaitley releasing the notings he had made as law minister during the previous NDA rule, opposing extradition of Bhopal Gas accused Warren Anderson. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj during her intervention in Parliament had blamed late former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for the Bofors scam and in the escape of Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson after the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
The party leaders said, they have already approached Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to expunge references made about Rajiv Gandhi as it amounted to defaming a late Prime Minister who cannot respond.
At a joint press conference, Rajya Sabha Opposition leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and his Lok Sabha counterpart Mallikarjun Kharge noted the clear-cut opinions of then law minister Arun Jaitley as also then attorney general Soli Sorabji during the NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee that there is no case to seek extradition of Anderson to face trial in the Bhopal tragedy case.
Sorabji gave his opinion in July 1998 while Jaitley recorded on file on September 25, 2001 that Anderson's extradition case was based on presumption that he had knowledge of design defects and violations of safety requirements merely by the virtue of his position as chairman of the parent company and as such no case that "Anderson committed any act that led to the direct result of the leakage of gas and the consequent loss of lives and injuries." He specifically recorded, "Our extradition case appears to be weak."
The two Congress leaders said it shows that the Vajpayee government completely exonerated Anderson as recorded on the government file. More shockingly, they said Jaitley gave an opinion as a lawyer on December 13, 2006 to the Dow Chemicals Company (parent company of Union Carbide) that "querist (Dow Chemicals) in any event cannot be held liable in any manner for the plant site remediation…..However, it can be concluded in light of the above factual matrix, the querist (Dow Chemicals) cannot be treated as responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, or under civil or criminal proceedings for the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, 1984."
Asking Prime Minister Modi and Jaitley on this conflict of interest of Jaitley, the Congress duo asked: "Was the first opinion given by him as a law minister a quid pro quo for subsequent engagement as a counsel by The Dow Chemicals Company whose subsidiary company Union Carbide Corporation was responsible for 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy?" They further noted that an RTI query in 2008 revealed that BJP had accepted a donation of US$ 2,500 from The Dow Chemicals Company.
As regards the Bofors allegations by Sushma against Rajiv Gandhi, the duo said the propaganda should have stopped, after the Delhi High Court's judgment on February 4, 2004 that "all the allegations of corruption have been clearly recorded as unproven and quashed."
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 "Congress attempts to turn tables on Arun Jaitley, releases his file notings")
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