Rao Inderjit Singh rubbishes allegations of CBI inquiry

He said the investigating agency has already closed Kandivili land scam case against him

Minister of State for Defence Rao Inderjit Singh today rubbished allegations that he was facing a CBI inquiry in the Kandivili land scam case in Mumbai saying the investigating agency has already closed the case against him as it found nothing against him.

Singh, who was Minister of State with responsibility of Defence Production in the previous Manmohan Singh government, said the case against him had no basis in the first place.

"It is regrettable that a disinformation campaign is being run by my erstwhile colleagues in Congress regarding the Kandivili case in Mumbai... After conducting detailed investigation, the CBI found no malafide had been established in the matter on part of any individual," said the minister who was earlier with Congress and joined BJP ahead of Lok Sabha elections, in a statement here.

He said the CBI had registered a preliminary inquiry into the case in January 2012 but "found no malafide had been established in the matter on part of any individual".

The Defence Ministry had also told Parliament on two occasions that the case has been closed.

He furnished a reply by the Defence Minister to a written question in Lok Sabha on September 9,2012 which said, "CBI has closed the Kandivili land case relating to alleged purchase of land by M/S Neo Pharma Limited on March 8, 2013."

In another reply to a question in Lok Sabha, the Defence Ministry said on December 9,2013 that "CBI instituted a Preliminary Enquiry into the case on January 12,2012. It has since been reported by CBI that they have closed the case."

He was reacting to attack by the Congress which claimed BJP leader Kirit Somaiya had sought action against Singh for alleged corruption when he was in UPA government.

Congress MP Rajiv Satav had posted the link to the communication by Somaiya in 2011 on his Twitter handle yesterday and party spokesperson Shashi Tharoor questioned how can it be that "one is corrupt when in UPA and is non-corrupt when in the BJP".

Inderjit Singh told PTI that Somaiya had realised that there was no merit in the case against him and had stopped speaking about it and others were raking it up unnecessarily.