[Now the snooping is a front page news. Can no longer be contained.] http://www.asianage.com/india/snooping-row-grows-ias-officer-goes-sc-657
Snooping row grows as IAS officer goes to SC Nov 20, 2013 | - Age Correspondent<http://www.asianage.com/category/source/age-correspondent> | - New Delhi <http://www.asianage.com/category/place/new-delhi> - With political fever running high in the crucial ongoing Assembly elections and the coming Lok Sabha polls, trouble continues to grow for BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. The Supreme Court Tuesday allowed suspended Gujarat IAS officer Pradeep Sharma to file a fresh application in the wake of the recent snooping allegations. The suspended IAS officer had filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court in 2011 seeking a probe by the CBI, rather than the state police, in cases filed against him. In the course of Tuesday’s hearing, Mr Sharma’s counsel Prashant Bhushan told the court that some very serious revelations have come to the fore in wake of the recent snooping incident, that allegedly involves former Gujarat minister of state for home Amit Shah, and thus a fresh application should be allowed. The court gave the petitioner time till December 6, when the matter comes up for hearing again, to the file a new application. Mr Sharma had indicated he knew about the woman architect, whose name figures in the tapped conversation between Mr Shah and Gujarat police officer G.L. Singhal, particularly about her proximity with the state government. Mr Sharma’s counsel, Mr Bhushan, meanwhile, told the media that the snooping incident had thrown up some startling revelations, and that he would be filing a formal application in the Supreme Court by the end of the week demanding a detailed CBI probe into the incident as the same officer was also affected by the snooping charge. In another development, the woman architect’s father — who has a Sangh Parivar background and is learnt to have close family ties with Mr Modi— has written to both the National Commission for Women and the Gujarat Commission for Women saying there was no need for an investigation, as demanded by some political parties. The NCW has, meanwhile, asked the state home department to explain what the entire issue was all about. The snooping controversy has already led to a slugfest between the Congress and the BJP, with the former launching an aggressive direct attack on Mr Modi. The Congress already fielded a four-member all-woman team to take on the BJP PM candidate. It has also demanded a detailed investigation by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court. The controversy could not have come at a worse time for the BJP, which is banking heavily on Mr Modi to bring it to power in the next general election. The party is now thus working overtime to defend its star campaigner. Minister of state for information and Broadcasting Manish Tewari had earlier said if the woman was indeed being protected at the behest of her father, as claimed by Mr Shah, then why wasn’t a proper assessment made of the threat that she faced and either a personal security officer provided or private security brought in? “If surveillance is being mounted in such a way, then this amounts to breach of privacy,” Mr Tewari said. “Are people OK if their mothers and daughters are being snooped upon by the state machinery?” he asked. In Mumbai, finance minister P. Chidambaram, in a dig at the Modi government, said that in the “wonderful state of Gujarat... security is provided by stalking and snooping”. The BJP’s former ally, the JD(U), joined the Congress in targeting the saffron party on this issue. JD(U) leader K.C. Tyagi said: “The BJP demands a high-level inquiry and resignations in every case. In this particular case, ‘Saheb’ is Modi himself. The matter should be probed, and Modi should step down till the report of the inquiry comes out.” The BJP retaliated strongly against the attacks, asking how the tapes had been made public, and how people not in the government had got hold of the recordings. Party leader Meenakshi Lekhi said: “I would like to put Manish Tewari in the shoes of a father protecting his daughter, then he wouldn’t be able to speak this kind of language.” Interestingly, though, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, campaigning in Madhya Pradesh, told a television news that she was not against an inquiry by a Supreme Court judge into the incident. BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi accused the Congress of resorting to “dirty tricks” to target Mr Modi as it was headed for a “shameful defeat” in the polls. “The Congress is depressed, disappointed and frustrated today. But we are neither surprised nor angry with the mental state of the Congress. In fact, we pity them,” said Mr Naqvi. The Congress has rubbished the BJP’s allegations that it was behind the expose of illegal snooping. Criticising the BJP, law, commuincations and IT minister Kapil Sibal said it was time for the Opposition party to “come clean” on the “real story behind the manufactured one”. Mr Sibal said he was surprised at BJP president Rajnath Singh’s allegation that the “dirty tricks department” of the Congress was behind the whole issue. “Rajnath Singh has said this is the work of the Congress tricks department. I am a little surprised... because the Macbeth of Indian politics today is not a Congressman. The dramatis persona is not a Congressman, the actors in this particular episode are not Congressmen, the script was not written by Congressmen and the victim certainly is not a Congress person,” he added. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. 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