Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and AAP leader Manish Sisodia said Wednesday that, “Filing false cases against one’s rival is a sign of weakness,” after the Union Home Ministry sanctioned his prosecution in an alleged snooping case.
A defiant Sisodia said the more his party would grow, the more cases would be filed against it leaders.
In a communique to the Delhi Lieutenant Governor Secretariat, dated 17 February, the Ministry of Home Affairs granted permission to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) proceed against Sisodia under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Delhi Lieutenant Governor V.K. Saxena had already approved the CBI’s request for prosecution and forwarded it to the Home Ministry.
The CBI sough sanction to register an FIR against Sisodia, who heads the state’s Vigilance Department. It is alleged that the AAP government in 2015 surreptitiously created and Feedback Unit (FBU) — an extra-Constitutional, extra-judicial intelligence agency – to allegedly spy on different ministries, Opposition parties, and individuals.
Early this month, the CBI had said it found in its preliminary inquiry that the FBU set up by the Delhi government to check corruption allegedly collected “political intelligence” and the agency recommended that an FIR be registered against Sisodia.
The Aam Aadmi Party dispensation had proposed setting up the FBU in 2015 to gather relevant information and actionable feedback regarding the working of the various departments and autonomous bodies, institutions and entities falling under the jurisdiction of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) and also to do “trap cases”, the CBI said.
The unit started functioning in 2016 with a provision of Rs 1 crore for secret service expenditure, it said.
“The Feedback Unit, in addition to collecting the mandated information, also collected political intelligence/intelligence qua miscellaneous issues,” the CBI said in its preliminary inquiry report.
This snooping unit, with no legislative or judicial oversight, was allegedly being run and managed by the close aides and advisors of CM Arvind Kejriwal, who reported directly to him. The case also pertains to illegal/unaccounted expenditure in the name of Secret Service Fund allocated to the FBU,” news agency ANI quoted sources.
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