NEW DELHI – India's prime minister Manmohan Singh, whose government has
been roiled by a series of corruption scandals, on Saturday urged the country's
top police agency to "act without fear or favour".
Singh's comments came as his Congress-led coalition reels from a slew of scandals, with his personal reputation on the line amid charges that he has allowed graft to go unchecked during his seven years in office.
The prime minister noted that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was investigating several high-profile cases of corruption that have attracted wide public attention.
"The handling of these cases constitutes a litmus test for you," Singh said at the opening of a new CBI headquarters in New Delhi.
"What is expected of you is thorough investigation, fair action and quick results. The CBI should act without fear or favour and bring to book all those who are guilty, irrespective of their position or status," he said.
"Whoever transgresses the law of the land, however mighty, has to be brought to book," Singh said.
At the same time, Singh told the CBI not to engage in witch-hunts.
"There should be no vendetta, no witch-hunt and no harassment of the innocent," he said.
Singh's government is in the eye of a storm over allegations that telecom licences were sold at cut-rate prices in 2008 in exchange for kickbacks, depriving the treasury of as much as 40 billion dollars in revenues.
It faces a second high-profile graft scandal over last October's Delhi Commonwealth Games. Last week the CBI arrested Suresh Kalmadi, a senior Congress lawmaker who was the top organiser of the $6 billion Games, on corruption charges.
The bureau had earlier arrested Singh's former telecoms minister A. Raja, government officials and senior telecom company officials over the telecom scam.
The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) meanwhile accused Singh and then finance minister P. Chidambaram of "direct complicity" in corruption in the telecom case.
The allegations came as the government and opposition clashed over the contents of a parliamentary committee report into the scandal.
"There was complete abdication of responsibility by the prime minister," said senior BJP lawmaker Yashwant Sinha, a member of the Public Accounts Committee, in the most direct opposition attack yet on Singh.
"In India's history there is no precedent of this kind. Nine out of 10 decisions taken by (then telecom minister) A. Raja were with the knowledge of the prime minister," Sinha told reporters.
A draft report sharply critical of the government was narrowly rejected by the Public Accounts Committee on which government supporters are in a slight majority.
Congress has accused the BJP of seeking to "destabilise" the government.
The government fears the slew of controversies could lead to a repeat of the 1989 "Bofors scandal" when Congress was voted out of office over a gun deal involving associates of then Premier Rajiv Gandhi, who were accused of taking kickbacks. AFP
Singh's comments came as his Congress-led coalition reels from a slew of scandals, with his personal reputation on the line amid charges that he has allowed graft to go unchecked during his seven years in office.
The prime minister noted that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was investigating several high-profile cases of corruption that have attracted wide public attention.
"The handling of these cases constitutes a litmus test for you," Singh said at the opening of a new CBI headquarters in New Delhi.
"What is expected of you is thorough investigation, fair action and quick results. The CBI should act without fear or favour and bring to book all those who are guilty, irrespective of their position or status," he said.
"Whoever transgresses the law of the land, however mighty, has to be brought to book," Singh said.
At the same time, Singh told the CBI not to engage in witch-hunts.
"There should be no vendetta, no witch-hunt and no harassment of the innocent," he said.
Singh's government is in the eye of a storm over allegations that telecom licences were sold at cut-rate prices in 2008 in exchange for kickbacks, depriving the treasury of as much as 40 billion dollars in revenues.
It faces a second high-profile graft scandal over last October's Delhi Commonwealth Games. Last week the CBI arrested Suresh Kalmadi, a senior Congress lawmaker who was the top organiser of the $6 billion Games, on corruption charges.
The bureau had earlier arrested Singh's former telecoms minister A. Raja, government officials and senior telecom company officials over the telecom scam.
The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) meanwhile accused Singh and then finance minister P. Chidambaram of "direct complicity" in corruption in the telecom case.
The allegations came as the government and opposition clashed over the contents of a parliamentary committee report into the scandal.
"There was complete abdication of responsibility by the prime minister," said senior BJP lawmaker Yashwant Sinha, a member of the Public Accounts Committee, in the most direct opposition attack yet on Singh.
"In India's history there is no precedent of this kind. Nine out of 10 decisions taken by (then telecom minister) A. Raja were with the knowledge of the prime minister," Sinha told reporters.
A draft report sharply critical of the government was narrowly rejected by the Public Accounts Committee on which government supporters are in a slight majority.
Congress has accused the BJP of seeking to "destabilise" the government.
The government fears the slew of controversies could lead to a repeat of the 1989 "Bofors scandal" when Congress was voted out of office over a gun deal involving associates of then Premier Rajiv Gandhi, who were accused of taking kickbacks. AFP
