Supreme Court clean chit to Chattisgarh CM in helicopter purchase

New Delhi/Bhopal: The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave a clean chit to Chattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh in the helicopter purchase from Agusta Westland holding that there was no fraud or illegality found in the deal.

Dismissing PILs filed by Swaraj Abhyan through Prashant Bhushan and two others, a bench of Justices A.K. Goel and Uday Lalit said, “The question is whether the allegations are substantiated against the son of the Chhattisgarh chief minister, Abhishak Singh. Even though the submission initially appeared to require consideration on account of which the state was directed to produce the record and explain the position after due consideration, we find it difficult to accept the same.”

Mr Singh hailed the decision by the apex court to reject the PIL in a strange way by tweeting, “Satyam Kim Pram-anam”, the Sanskrit quote if loosely translated says “truth ultimately prevails”.

In fact, he tagged his comment with the Twitter accounts of Pradesh Congress Committee president Bhupesh Baghel and Congress Legislature Par-ty leader T.S. Singhdeo, who have been vocal in demanding a CBI probe into it for the past several years.

AICC general secretary in-charge of Chhattisgarh P.L. Punia, however, said the apex court’s dismissal of the PIL did not amount to giving clean chit to the chief minister on the issue.

“The matter is currently being probed other Central government agencies,” he observed.