The net seems to be finally closing around Mumbai Congress president Kripa Shankar Singh. The man had managed all this while to evade an inquiry into his role in the Rs 4,000-crore Madhu Koda corruption and money-laundering scam, but now a division bench of the Bombay HC has directed the CBI to consider probing Singh’s role. The bench, comprising acting chief justice J.N. Patel and Justice S.C. Dharmadhikari, was hearing a PIL on June 10 and asked for a reply to be filed by July 15. It also asked the Union and state governments to spell out the action they intended to take against Kripa Shankar. “You are supposed to take cognizance of such allegations,” it stated.
Recent media reports
Outlook, in its issue dated March 1, 2010, had blown the cover off the leader’s wealth, the assets disproportionate to his known sources of income and his links to Koda. Kripa Shankar, as the AICC-appointed observer for Jharkhand, was instrumental in getting Koda, an independent MLA, appointed CM in ’06. Following this, Kripa Shankar’s son Narendra was married to the daughter of Koda’s confidant and cabinet minister Kamlesh Singh. The story had highlighted the large transactions between 2006-07 and 2008-09—amounting to nearly Rs 65 crore—in three of the eight bank accounts held by Kripa Shankar and his family members in a local bank in Mumbai, besides his rather sudden acquisition of high-end properties in Mumbai. Following the story’s publication, the Congress leader sent Outlook a defamation notice.
However, local RTI activist Sanjay Tiwari filed a PIL in the Bombay High Court on March 29 demanding inquiry by a special investigating team. He alleged that the CBI as well as the Income Tax and Enforcement Directorate were reluctant to launch a thorough investigation into Kripa Shankar’s role in the Koda scam. Koda and his associate Kamlesh Singh, investigated by the three agencies, are under arrest since November 2009. Handwritten diary entries mentioned, among other netas and bureaucrats, a certain “Kripashankar A/c”, widely believed to be the Congress leader. He has maintained it is not him. It doesn’t help that Koda’s hawala transactions have been traced to Mumbai-based dealers.
In a related development that could tighten the case against Kripa Shankar, Arvind Vyas—who along with Manoj Punamiya of the Balaji Group was raided by the ED and the IT department in Oct-Nov ’09—was arrested at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji international airport earlier this month. The duo was allegedly involved in hawala transfers of nearly Rs 1,500 crore to Koda’s aide Sanjay Chaudhary in Dubai. Vyas, questioned by the IT and ED, had confessed to transferring “$1 million to Chaudhary” but had refused to respond to ED summons.
Tiwari’s PIL points to the large volume of cash transactions in Kripa Shankar’s accounts as well as those of his wife, son and daughter-in-law and the amassing of prime property worth Rs 250-400 crore to argue that he was a conduit for Koda. “As an MLA, he earns about Rs 45,000 per month. How can he accumulate assets worth nearly Rs 400 crore,” asks noted advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, arguing for Tiwari. Congress party sources say Kripa Shankar had so far managed to escape on the strength of his network in Delhi but “will be under watch now”. He and his family have been asked to file in their affidavits by July 15. His counsel C.G. Gawnekar told the court that the PIL was “politically motivated”. How true that is remains to be seen.
