Congress should trust Italian court's decision: Jitendra Singh

Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Jitender Singh on Thursday appealed to the opposition Congress party not to disrupt proceedings in Parliament, and warned that continuing with tactic would eventually go against the latter.

Referring specifically to the Congress party's stand on an Italian court ruling on the marines case, Singh said, "I think it is very rightly said, if they have no faith in India's judiciary, then they should at least trust what the Italian court has delivered in this case."

Dr. Singh was responding to an Italian court naming both Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her political secretary Ahmed Patel in documents related to the AgustaWestland corruption case, as also to the Italian government saying that it considers India's jurisdiction over the two Italian marines -- Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone -- who have been accused of killing two fishermen off the coast of Kerala in 2012 to be suspended, and therefore, legally overridden, after India's Supreme Court extended the stay of the two Italian marines till September 30 this year.

Dr. Singh was also making a reference to an Italian foreign ministry statement that said that it would go by the latest ruling of the Hague-based International Tribunal for the Sea that said India and Italy should suspend all internal judicial actions while arbitration is pending.

"I think, if today also the opposition tries to disrupt the house, this will only go on to prove that they have something to hide, contrary to what they said, that they have nothing to hide," Dr. Singh said

AgustaWestland's Rs 3,600 crore contract for supplying 12 VVIP choppers to the Indian Air Force was scrapped by the UPA government over charges of paying kickbacks to Indian agents. In January 2013, India cancelled the deal and the CBI was assigned to investigate the matter.