New Delhi: The Congress on Monday launched a scathing attack on the Narendra Modi government and demanded the immediate resignation of finance minister Arun Jaitley alleging “conflict of interest” as his kin received Rs 24 lakh as legal fee from a firm of PNB scam accused Mehul Choksi in December, a month before the case came to light, and returned the money to Mr Choksi on February 20 .
Using #ArunJaitlie MustResign, Congress president Rahul Gandhi tweeted, “Arun Jaitlie’s daughter was on the payroll of thief Mehul Choksi. Meanwhile her FM daddy sat on his file & allowed him to flee. She received money from ICICI a/c no: 12170500316. It’s sad that media has blacked out this story. The people of India won’t.”
Addressing a press conference, Congress leaders Sachin Pilot, Sushmita Dev and Rajeev Satav alleged that Mr Jaitley’s daughter and son-in-law, both lawyers, allegedly received a retainership of Rs 24 lakh from Mr Choksi.
Mr Pilot said, “Gitanjali Gems was engaged to retain Arun Jaitley Ji’s daughter Sonali Jaitley and son-in-law Jayesh Bakshi’s legal firm for a sum of '24 lakh. Choksi fled the country on January 4. On February 20, Sonali and Jayesh returned those 24 lakh saying we didn’t do any work for them.”
However, Mr Jaitley’s son-in-law had earlier issued a statement stating that his law firm had returned the retainership the moment they came to know that the company was involved in a scam.
The Congress on Monday also released a bank statement claiming that the '24 lakh reflected in it is the amount returned to Mr Choksi’s firm.
Mr Pilot said, “As people who owed money to Mehul Choksi/Nirav Modi came forward and deposited the money with the government after their fraudulent escape, why did FM Jaitley’s daughter and son-in-law redeposit '24 lakh in the account of a company that had defrauded the banks and people of '26,306 crore? Why did they hide it?”
The Congress alleged collusion on the part of the finance minister and said, “Is this not a clear-cut case of ‘collusion, connivance & conflict of interest’ on part of FM Arun Jaitley? Why were FM Jaitley, his daughter and son-in-law neither summoned nor questioned by CBI/ED/SFIO? Is it not a fit case to sack Shri Arun Jaitley and conduct a full independent investigation?”
