Talking to media at the state Congress office here, Moily said: “ When various agencies are probing the riots and the judicial process is on, the evidence pertaining to the riots should have been preserved and not destroyed”.
On the Lokpal Bill, he said the government had so far held nine meetings with Team Anna regarding its drafting. Moily said that rewriting the Constitution was not their mandate, and to do so was the job of the constituent assembly.
He said that Team Anna wanted to bring even the judiciary under the Lokpal, but the judiciary has to be independent as per the dictates of the Constitution. Team Anna, he said, wanted to bring everything includ ing the legislature, judiciary and executive under the Lokpal, and it was not acceptable.
Meanwhile Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi accused the Narendra Modi government of “lying” to the people.
“This is a classic slip done slop then again a slip by Gujarat government which is doing somersault because it has much to hide. A very senior counsel on behalf of the state government said that records are destroyed in usual course,” Singhvi said.
He was responding to a media report that the Gujarat government has contradicted its senior counsel’s stated submission before a court regarding destruction of crucial records relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Singhvi said no one explained how records could be destroyed when more than five proceedings, including Supreme Court proceedings, are going on.
“The state government does not disown the counsel or refute his stand. Now suddenly the state government says the records are not destroyed. Either they were lying then or they are lying now,” he said.
“And the most important if the records are not destroyed the nation would like to see them where they are and whether they (are part of) legal judicial proceedings?” Abishek Singhvi asked.