NEW DELHI: The former Prime Minister and senior Janata Dal leader, Vishwa Nath Pratap Singh demanded that the government should under no circumstances accept the request for voluntary retirement of the CBI joint director K.M adhawan, who is conducting the investigations into the stock scam.
Talking to newsmen, Singh asserted that the Government was well within its rights to reject the request of Madhavan and should do everything possible to retain his valuable services. Singh who described the CBI official as a brilliant sleuth with unimpeachable integrity also alleged that the latter was being pressurized to put in his papers. “The entire episode smacks of a deep conspiracy and a scandal by itself,” he said.
Demanding a thorough inquiry into the circumstances which compelled even a“ committed and intrepid” officer to seek retirement, Singh dismissed the Government’s explanation in this regard as a cover-up job.
He contested the reply given by the Government in the parliament that the CBI official sought voluntary retirement because of “personal reasons” after his request for a promotion had been rejected.
The Janata Dal leader had maintained that Madhawan had raised the wider issue of the promotion of the officials belonging to the parent cadre of the CBI and not just of his own elevation to a senior rank.
The former Prime Minister felt that the Madhawan affair was just another instance of the familiar pattern of the honest officials being hounded, He recalled how the team of the CBI officials, including Madhawan, which had make a breakthrough into the Bofors probe was dismantled.
Madhawan was then shifted to economic intelligence and now since his presence and association with the inquiry into the stock scam had become uncomfortable for those involved and an effort is on to hound him out from there too, Singh said.
An impartial inquiry, Singh observed, would give right signals to the honest bureaucrats who are bound to feel demoralized if the officials like Madhawan continued to be humiliated. He also expressed concern over the fact that the newly-appointed cabinet secretary was heading the National Power Finance Corporation when substantial funds were diverted from the government undertaking to help those involved in the stock scam.
Pointing out that the information sought by the Joint Parliamentary Committee probing the stocks cam was going to be routed through the office of the cabinet secretary, he reiterated that the chairman of the parliamentary probe panel should be from the Opposition.
Harikisbore Singh, official spokesman of the Janata Dal alleged that the lives of Madhawan and his family members was in danger.
Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 14, 1992
