Dehradun, 22 Jun: Former Chief Minister and veteran Congress leader Harish Rawat, former Cabinet Minister Harak Singh Rawat and two MLAs have been served with notice of CBI in respect of the famous sting operation of the year 2016 which had led to the downfall of Harish Rawat Government, though the government had been reinstated later.
The CBI court has ordered to issue notices to former Chief Minister Harish Rawat, former minister Dr Harak Singh Rawat, Congress MLA Madan Singh Bisht and independent MLA Umesh Kumar (Khanpur), the mastermind of the sting operation. The CBI had given an application in the High Court for permission to collect the voice samples of these four. Now the Court has allowed the CBI to go ahead with serving the notices and pursue the inquiry related to the 2016 sting operation.
The hearing of the case had taken place on Tuesday, 20 June in the court of Special Judge CBI Dharmendra Singh Adhikari in Dehradun. Prosecution Officer Siyaram Meena and CBI Inspector Sushil Kumar Verma presented an application on behalf of the CBI in the court. In this, an appeal was made to the Court to grant permission to collect voice samples of Harish Rawat, Harak Singh Rawat, Umesh Kumar and Madan Singh Bisht.
It was told in the court that notices were issued to them on 8 June, but the notices have not been served yet. Along with issuing notices to them again, the court has given instructions to the CBI to follow it. Out of the above four, two are MLAs at present. In this case both the sitting MLAs were also directed to follow the prescribed procedure for serving notices. The next hearing in the case will be held on 4 July.
It may be recalled that in 2016, some Congress MLAs had withdrawn their support to their party’s Chief Minister Harish Rawat and had further claimed that he had lost support of his own party leaders and come in majority. Later, on the call of Governor, President rule was invoked. During that time, Umesh Kumar, presently an independent MLA from Khanpur (Haridwar) had masterminded a sting operation in which Harish Rawat was allegedly seen to be willing to purchase support of the MLAs whose support he had lost. However, once this sting became viral, it was claimed by Rawat as doctored. The sting also showed Harak Singh Rawat and another Congress MLA from Dwarahat, Madan Singh Bist.
Umesh Kumar had in 2016 claimed to have done a sting on Harish Rawat when he was the Chief Minister. After this there was an earthquake in the politics of the state. Meanwhile, another sting came to the fore, in which it is being claimed that MLA Madan Singh Bisht is involved. Dr Harak Singh Rawat was also claimed to be involved in this sting.
Regarding both the stings, it was claimed on behalf of Umesh Kumar that horse-trading of MLAs was being done to save the Harish Rawat government. In this, the claim of money transaction was also made during the sting broadcast. Later the investigation of this entire matter was handed over to the CBI. And now the voices have been recorded in the sting, the CBI has sought permission from the court to take voice samples of all these four leaders to match them.
Of course, a lot had transpired since then, which led to reinstatement of Harish Rawat Government. Though on the basis of the sting video, a CBI case had been registered against Harish Rawat but the case had not made any headway since. Hence, now that the case is up for hearing and the CBI has shown renewed interest into the case and has appealed to the CBI Court bench led by Justice Dharmendra Singh Adhikari, the case is again making political wave.
