A BJP fact-finding commission has given a clean chit to party leaders accused of offering bribes to journalists in Leh to influence the Lok Sabha polls and criticised the district election officers for facilitating the registration of an FIR.
The Leh Press Club, which claims the BJP leaders tried to bribe its members, scoffed at the report. The Leh journalists had refused an invitation from the BJP commission to “depose” before it.
The commission was headed by former judge G.D. Sharma and had as members a former inspector-general of police, S.S. Bijral, and Dr Pallav Sharma. It said there was “not an iota of evidence” to prove the allegation of bribery.
It claimed the allegation was “a case of well-planned political conspiracy as a result of afterthought to malign and defame in public the reputation of the accused persons and the political party to which they belong”.
BJP spokesperson Anil Gupta, a former brigadier, said veteran leader Avinash Rai Khanna, to whom the report had been submitted, had handed it over to Amit Shah in New Delhi on Wednesday.
The Leh Press Club had alleged that senior politicians, including state unit chief Ravinder Raina, had tried to bribe them after a media conference at a hotel in Leh on May 2 for favourable coverage ahead of the May 6 vote. The complaint was lodged on May 4.
Local Congress leader Rigzin Spalbar had lodged a separate complaint the same day.
Leh police had last month registered an FIR against some BJP leaders after the Leh chief judicial magistrate directed the police to probe the allegations by the Leh Press Club and Spalbar.
The FIR mentioned Vikram Randhawa, a BJP member of the legislative council, by name. The BJP denied the allegation but video footage emerged later showing a man resembling Randhawa handing over envelopes to journalists, which press club members claim contained cash.
A person resembling Raina was seen chatting and shaking hands with the journalists in the video. The grainy video showed the journalists returning the envelopes after opening them.
The alleged bribery bid took place two days before then defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman was to address a rally in Leh. The BJP leaders claim that the envelopes contained invitations to reporters to cover the defence minister’s rally.
The BJP commission’s report says it has been “established” that the envelopes contained invitation cards.
One of the reasons cited by the commission for such a conclusion was the delay of two days in the journalists filing the complaint.
Aghast that the BJP leaders “have been rendered liable to face criminal investigations on the basis of registration of an FIR”, the report has hit out at the election officers.
“The proof of giving or accepting illegal gratification is the raison d’être of the offence of bribery, which ingredient is missing in the case…. It was expected from all the concerned local officers… whose conduct is relevant here, to address themselves about the patent unexplained delay… from May 2 to May 4,” the report said.
“A legal duty is always cast on every executive officer to pass such an order in the discharge of public functions, which is reasonable at the anvil of law. In case the element of reasonableness is missing, the order becomes whimsical, capricious and arbitrary, which is antithesis of the doctrine of rule of law,” it added.
A preliminary probe by the Leh administration had said that an examination of CCTV footage suggested that the envelopes “contained some sort of inducement/allurements”. The BJP commission, however, drew a different conclusion.
“The two CCTV cameras fixed in the hall are sheet-anchor of false and fabricated story of handing over of envelopes containing some sort of inducement/allurement with a purpose to influence the journalists,” the report said, perhaps suggesting the footage showed the envelopes and not the purported cash.
“The ocular evidence produced before us has completely defaced the improved allegation that envelopes contained cash money.”
Another “evidence of clinching nature (that) has sounded a death knell of the funeral of the false cooked up story of giving bribe” is that a BJP leader reportedly participated in a debate at the Leh Press Club on May 3, during which the journalists allegedly did not raise the issue.
Press club president Stanzin Morup said: “An FIR has been registered and we will wait for its report. We have nothing to do with the BJP’s inquiry report, which must be in their favour,” he said.
