Steel minister Virbhadra, wife booked in corruption case

Union steel minister Virbhadra Singh and his wife have been booked in a two-year-old case of corruption by the Himachal Pradesh vigilance and anti-corruption bureau. The action triggered an angry response from the veteran Congress politician, who saw it as an act of political vendetta by the BJP government in the state.

After getting the state government's approval, a first information report was registered under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, last night against Singh and his wife, Pratibha, DS Manhas, director-general of the vigilance bureau, said today.

The sections relate to misuse of official position and criminal misconduct.

"The FIR is a cheap gimmick which shall collapse under its own weight," Singh said in New Delhi. "It is another desperate move to damage me and the Congress party through false and baseless accusations and unscrupulous vilification."

Singh said the action was nothing but an act of political vendetta against him by the BJP government in the state.

The case has been registered on the complaint of retired IAS officer SM Katwal on the basis of an audio CD released by former Himachal Pradesh minister Vijay Singh Mankotia in 2007 claiming that it contained the voice of Singh and his wife talking to retired bureaucrat Mohinder Lal (who has since died) about alleged corruption, a release from the vigilance bureau said.

As part of the investigation, the CD was sent to the central forensic science laboratory for examination. The laboratory confirmed that two of the voices on the tape were those of Singh and his wife, a source in the state vigilance bureau said.

Singh, who has served as chief minister of the hill state five times before moving to the Centre, firmly ruled out stepping down. "There is no question of my resignation," he told the Press Trust of India.

Manhas said the FIR was lodged against Singh and Pratibha Singh, a former MP, after getting permission from the state home and law departments.

Mankotia, who served as a minister in Singh's government in Himachal Pradesh (2003-2007) but was later dropped when the cabinet was pruned, had released the audio CD on the eve of the by-election to the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat in July 2007.

He claimed that the chief minister and his wife were talking to Mohinder Lal, former IAS officer, seeking a bribe. The CD issue figured prominently in the by-election at that time, which was won by Prem Kumar Dhumal of the BJP by a margin of 80,000 votes. Dhumal, a former chief minister of the state, later became chief minister once again.

Singh, who won the recent Lok Sabha election from Mandi, said, "The so-called CD has been in the air for more than two years. If such a CD exists, it is certainly an excuse in fabrication and doctoring."

The minister said he had aleady filed a criminal complaint against Mankotia, who initially released the CD at a press conference at Dharamsala in May 2007. Mankotia was summoned by the chief judicial magistrate, Shimla. The matter is now pending.

Singh said the "mischief" was played at Dhumal's behest in view of the by-elections to two assembly seats in the state, including Rohroo, his stronghold in Shimla district. The other seat is Jwali in Kangra district, which fell vacant after the resignation of the BJP's Rajan Sushant, who won the Lok Sabha seat in the district and moved to Parliament.

"The desperate act of the state government is nothing but an act of political vendetta," Singh said. "The first time this CD was released, Dhumal was going to contest the Lok Sabha by-election in 2007. Now the Vidhan Sabha by-elections are imminent. It seems the BJP remembers this CD only before elections."

Hitting out at Dhumal, Singh, who won his first parliamentary election in 1962 and has since been elected to the Lok Sabha five times, said the BJP politician had tried to "politically nail him" during his [Dhumal's] previous tenure as chief minister, from 1998 to 2003, also.

"Dhumal at that time had levelled 24 charges of corruption against me and recommended the matter to the CBI. But the CBI gave me a clean chit in all the cases," Singh said. He asserted that the latest FIR would also fall through.