Snooping row: Congress demands inquiry by SC judge

Keeping up the heat on Chief Minister Narendra Modi over the allegations of illegal snooping on a woman here, Gujarat Congress today passed a resolution demanding an inquiry by a sitting Supreme Court judge into the case.
The move comes on a day when the state government appointed retired Gujarat High Court judge Sugnyaben K Bhatt and retired former Additional Chief Secretary KC Kapoor, to hold an inquiry into the allegations that the said surveillance was carried out at the behest of former state Home Minister Amit Shah.
The two-member panel has been asked to submit its report within three months.

The meeting of the Congress state executive, which passed the resolution, was chaired by the party's Gujarat unit president Arjun Modhwadia. Congress's Leader of Opposition, Shankarsinh Vaghela, too, attended the meeting.
"With elections approaching, we have to go to the people with the fact of how Gujarat government has flouted all the rules in the snooping scandal," Vaghela said.
Gujarat Congress will launch an agitation to take the snooping scandal to the people of the state, he added.

The resolution, moved by MP Alka Kshatriya, also demanded that Modi should clarify whether his government had extended benefits to the family members of the girl in question.

Meanwhile, another resolution, moved by former Congress MP Virji Thummer, called for the state government to directly purchase groundnuts from farmers at a minimum support price citing a bumper produce this year due to good rainfall.
A third resolution, moved by Congress leader Brijesh Merja, demanded a reduction in the VAT on Compressed Natural Gas and Piped Natural Gas (PNG) while also seeking a relief package for the ceramic industry, "which is passing though a bad phase due to a rise in prices of PNG".