"Their Standard Procedure?": Salman Khurshid On Arun Jaitley's "Investigative Adventurism" Remark On CBI

Salman Khurshid reacted to Arun Jaitley's statement by a tweet today.

A day after Union minister Arun Jaitley called the CBI raids at the Videocon headquarters in Mumbai and Aurangabad on Thursday "investigative adventurism", senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid wondered why was the Finance Minister "perturbed" when it was "their standard procedure".

Former ICICI Bank chief Chanda Kochhar has been accused of criminal conspiracy and cheating by the CBI, along with her husband Deepak Kochhar and Videocon head Venugopal Dhoot, in a case linked to alleged irregularities in an over Rs 3,000-crore loan.

The CBI in its FIR had said the loans to Videocon had been sanctioned in violation of the bank's credit policy.

In a blog post, Arun Jaitley attributed "poor" conviction rate in India to "adventurism and megalomania" which "overtakes investigators and professionalism takes a back seat.

"Sitting thousands of kilometers away, when I read the list of potential targets in the ICICI case, the thought that crossed my mind was again the same - Instead of focusing primarily on the target, is a journey to nowhere (or everywhere) being undertaken?" the Finance Minister, who is on a medical trip to the US, wrote.

In another tweet, he said that professional investigation targets the real accused on the basis of actual and admissible evidence. "There is no personal malice or corruption. It targets the guilty and protects the innocent," he said.

However, Salman Khurshid alleged that it has been a "standard procedure" where "mistakes" are treated as "corruption" and "carelessness" as "malice" to harass people.

"FM Jaitley is perturbed about CBI's adventurism but is that not their standard procedure? For too long mistakes are treated as corruption; indiscretion is treated as malice. Being a country of criminals by govt directive is horrible," Mr Khurshid tweeted today.

Several political parties have been alleging that central investigative agencies are being used by the centre against political opponents.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav went on to allege that the centre has formed an alliance with the Central Bureau of Investigation, Enforcement Directorate and other agencies and whenever the BJP feels threatened, its political opponents are visited by CBI officers.

"And they know how to use them to their benefit," Mr Yadav said after it emerged that he might be questioned in the UP's sand mining scam.