AMN /NEW DELHI
Congress leader Kapil Sibal Thursday reacted sharply over allegation by BJP MP Smriti Irani accusing him of striking a land deal with a man accused of money laundering in South Africa.
The Congress leader dismissed the allegation as baseless and termed them an attempt to deflect attention from the ongoing CBSE paper leak crisis.
“It is sad that in this country, economics and maths exam papers are leaked which never happened in the past. I have also been the HRD minister. If you talk about Election Commission, election dates are leaked. If you look at Aadhaar, data is leaked. But when they have to protect their own degrees, the information never leaks. So the government knows how to protect information, what they don’t want to be leaked is not leaked.
Earlier, Irani had cited a media report, which alleged that Sibal and his wife got the acquisition of a piece of land, worth Rs 89 crore, by merely paying Rs 1 lakh — the paid-up capital amount for 100% share of the company, Grand Castello.
The deal was facilitated by Piyoosh Goyal, who, other than being Sibal’s friend, also “enjoys business relations” with the Congress leader, the report claimed.
Goyal is the founder and chairman of World Windows Infrastructure and Logistics Pvt Ltd, according to the website of the organization. The firm deals in scrap metal and logistics conglomerate.
The BJP leader referred to another investigative report by a South Africa-based journalist, published in Daily Maverick. The report investigates the links between Sibal, Goyal and South Africa-based Gupta family, who was at the focus of widespread scrutiny because of their close ties to Jacob Zuma, during his presidency.
“There is no evidence that Sibal was party to money laundering or corruption, but it is worth noting his refusal to explain a deal with Worlds Window, an Indian scrap metal and logistics conglomerate,” the Daily Maverick report read.
Irani cited a third media report in which she pointed that Goyal was an accused in a SBI corruption case related to the disbursal of a loan of over Rs 400 crore, which was being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.