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Raja called up judge, says Jaya
Swati Das | Chennai
AIADMK supremo and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Thursday named Union IT and Communications Minister A Raja as the person who called up Madras High Court judge R Raghupathy to influence him to grant anticipatory bail to the accused in the mark-sheet scam, media reports said.
In a statement here, Jayalalithaa also urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh not to turn a Nelson’s eye to the deeds of Raja: “This is the first time in India that a sitting high court judge is accusing a Union Minister of threatening him. Such a Minister deserves to be sacked from the Union Cabinet. Charged with having caused a loss to the Government of India to the extent of nearly Rs 1 lakh crore through a faulty spectrum allocation policy during his earlier stint as Telecom Minister, Raja ought not to have been made Minister again under the new UPA dispensation. If Prime Minister Manmohan Singh continues to turn a Nelson’s eye to the undesirable and illegal activities of his Cabinet colleague from the DMK, he would be doing the nation and democracy a tremendous disservice!”
Terming the disclosure in open court by Justice Raghupathy on Monday that a Union Minister had urged him to grant anticipatory bail to accused C Krishnamurthy and his son Kirubha Sridhar as shocking, Jayalalithaa said that Krishnamurthy, hailing from Raja’s native district of Perambalur, is better known “as Raja’s benami”.
Jayalalithaa alleged that before becoming a Union Minister, Raja had his law office in the building owned by Krishnamurthy. “In January 2007, Krishnamurthy, at the behest of Raja, who had by then become Union Minister for Environment, had promoted Kovai Shelters Promoters India Pvt Ltd, a real estate company with its main office on Avinashi Road, Coimbatore. Raja made investments in the company through his nephew R Sridhar and nieces R Anandabhuvaneswari and R Santhanalakshmi, each with 15 per cent stakes in the firm. Later, in a blatant instance of nepotism, Raja also had his nephew Sridhar inducted into the Ministry of Environment as a deputy director. Significantly, Sridhar did not disclose to the department the fact that he was holding stakes and directorship in a private concern at the time of his appointment. All these facts have been reported by the media as early as in January this year.”
She further claimed that Raja’s financial position improved in the wake of the infamous telecom scam, so did the fortunes of Krishnamurthy and his wife Selvakumari. Their business empire includes finance companies and petrol stores in Coimbatore, more than 200 acres of land in Perambalur and “lucrative sand and granite quarrying contracts”, in addition to holdings and business interests in Mumbai, “all acquired in recent years”.
“It is this Krishnamurthy, along with his son Kirubha Sridhar, who stands accused before the Madras High Court in a CBI case relating to forgery of medical examination marks list. And, it is in this case that Justice Raghupathy has alleged that a Union Minister had tried to influence his better judgement! Though the Honourable Judge refrained from naming the Union Minister, it does not require any super-human intelligence to conclude that it was none other than the telecom scam-tainted A Raja,” Jayalalithaa said.
Meanwhile, there was uproar in the Tamil Nadu Assembly over the issue of influencing the judge for granting bail in the forgery case. However, State Law Minister Duraimuragan told the Assembly that the Government could take action only if the judge who disclosed the incident named the Minister.
“The judge had expressed some views but had not named the person. Only if he pin-pointed the person, the Government can take action. When he himself has not disclosed the name, why are you asking us to find out who the person is? Let him name the person, then you question the Government,” Duraimurugan said replying to a debate on the demand for grants for the Law and Justice Department. The issue was raised by the AIADMK members.
When the opposition demanded that the issue be discussed further, Deputy Speaker VP Duraisamy disallowed it on the ground that judges could not be made a subject of discussion in the House. Congress legislature party leader D Sudarsanam also claimed that the House was not empowered to discuss courts or judges and the matter was closed on Tuesday itself.
After Duraimurugan’s statement, the Opposition staged a boycott.
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