BeyondHeadlines Staff Reporter
New Delhi: Sanjeev Saxena, arrested for his alleged role in the 2008 cash-for-vote scam, on Monday moved a bail plea in a Delhi court accusing the police of pressurizing him to sign a “pre-typed” statement having names of leaders of various political parties as kingpins in the case, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.
“The police officials during remand of applicant (Saxena) pressurised him to sign on pre-typed statement, which was in the name of the applicant.
“When the applicant (had) gone through those said pre-typed sheets, he was shocked and surprised that there were names of Digvijay Singh, Ahmed Patel, J D Seelam, Motilal Vora, Sheila Dikshit, Rajiv Shukla, Oscar Fernandes, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Ramgopal Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Amar Singh, Reoti Raman Singh, Arun Jaitley, Sudhindra Kulkarni and leaders from different political parties mentioned as they were kingpins of the cash-for-vote episode in the Parliament,” Saxena, in his bail plea, said.
It said Saxena declined to sign the “pre-typed” statement.
Special Judge Sangita Dhingra Sehgal issued notice to the Crime Branch of police for August 18 on the plea, filed by Saxena through his advocate Santosh Pandey.
Saxena, a former aide of SP leader Shahid Siddiqqui and who is in jail since July 17, also alleged that some BJP leaders had conspired with BSP to bring down the then UPA Government.
The application said “A conspiracy was hatched by BJP and BSP to destabilize the UPA government and that when the said conspiracy had failed, the conspirators were seeking to malign Ahmed Patel (Political Adviser of Sonia Gandhi) and Amar Singh.”
It said “Shyam Jaju (in-charge of BJP headquarters) handed over two bags to Suhail Hindustani (co-accused) after talking to Arun Jaitley, occupant of said Ashoka Road Bungalow, Suhail provided one bag to me to hand over to one Ashok Argal (a BJP MP) at his residence…”
Seeking bail, Saxena alleged a frame up saying he never worked with expelled SP General Secretary Amar Singh.
He said co-accused Suhail, an alleged BJP activist introduced him to Jaju, who, in turn took advice from Jaitley.
He stuck to his statement made before the Joint Parliamentary Committee, constituted to probe the scam.
“Jaju informed the applicant that BJP lost more than hundred crore of rupees in the trust vote as only few members of the Parliament (out of several MPs who had been approached and paid money) had done the cross voting against the UPA on July 22, 2008 for which members of BJP and BSP had spent the said monies,” the application said.
Saxena said he had apologized to Ahmed Patel and Amar Singh by writing letters to them.
Saxena and Suhail Hindustani are in judicial custody till August 18 in the case.
Slammed by the Supreme Court for a shoddy probe into the scam, police had first arrested Saxena on July 17. Hindustani was arrested three days after.
The two have been booked for various offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
