Delhi Lieutenant Governor, VK Saxena, on Monday, 5 September, sent a legal notice to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its leaders – Atishi Singh, Durgesh Pathak, Saurabh Bharadwaj, Sanjay Singh, and Jasmine Shah – for accusing him of corruption and raising 'defamatory allegations' against him.
The AAP leaders have been asked to reply within 48 hours.
This comes after Delhi LG on 31 August stated that he would sue the leaders of the AAP for defamation.
"The Lt Governor has decided to take legal action against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders – Saurabh Bhardwaj, Atishi, Durgesh Pathak, and Jasmine Shah, among others – for highly defamatory and false allegations of corruption by them, attributed to his tenure as chairman of KVIC," said a statement from the LG office.
What Are the Allegations Made by AAP Against Delhi LG?
During a special session of the Delhi Assembly on 29 August, AAP MLA Durgesh Pathak alleged, "In 2016, Saxena forced Khadi's cashiers to exchange his old unaccounted bank notes for him."
"When the whole country was suffering from cashlessness, lakhs lost jobs and several slept hungry, the then KVIC chairman Saxena committed a scam of Rs 1,400 crore in the name of Mahatma Gandhi."AAP MLA Durgesh Pathak
Pathak said that two cashiers of Khadi had exposed the "scam" but Saxena "himself investigated" their allegations and suspended them.
"Cashiers Pradeep Yadav and Sanjeev Kumar stated on record that after demonetisation, an illegitimate exchange of Rs 22 lakh in cash took place from their (Delhi) branch alone. And in this manner, the same scam was conducted through 7,000 branches of Khadi spread across India," Pathak had stated.
Recently, on 2 September, AAP also alleged that Saxena misused his position and awarded a contract for interior designing of a Khadi lounge in Mumbai to his daughter when he was the KVIC chairman and demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi "immediately" sack him.
AAP's attack against Delhi LG came after the latter recommended a CBI probe into the government's liquor policy. The CBI is probing the matter and has filed a case against Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, naming him as the principal accused in the case relating to lapses in the excise policy of the Arvind Kejriwal government.
(With inputs from ANI.)
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