Terming the allegations against former Army Chief V.K. Singh as serious, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Saturday said the Defence Ministry will carefully examine and investigate the matter.
"The Defence Ministry will carefully examine and investigate the matter and I have full faith that it will take appropriate action. However, along with that, I also want to say that this is an extremely serious issue. It does not matter whether it is regarding Jammu and Kashmir or Punjab or Assam or UP-any state government facing something like this is an serious affair," Azad said.
"Until the truth is not established, even though this is an army enquiry, we know from the experience of the past couple of years that there is no agency in the country which is free from groupism. It is unfortunate for the country. ... In the past couple of years, we have seen that there is even groupism in the army, which wasn't there before," he said.
Azad said that it would be constructive not to blow the allegations out of proportion until the truth is established and the Defence Ministry verifies the claims made against General V.K. Singh.
"Until the Defence Ministry does not investigate and verify the report submitted to them by the Army Headquarters, we should not take the allegations as absolute truth," Azad said.
Azad said the allegations against the former Army chief are serious as it pertains to the coalition government of Jammu and Kashmir.
"When we talk about Jammu and Kashmir, it is not solely Omar Abdullah's government. It is a coalition government, of which the Congress is also a part. ...If the allegations come out to be true, then it is a serious problem," he said.
"The Defence Minister will have to see how to ensure that something like this does not happen again in neither Jammu and Kashmir, nor anywhere else in the country," he added.
The former army chief earlier in the day strongly rejected allegations that he had misused a technical services division (TSD) created by him when he was army chief to unseat the National Conference-Congress-led government in Jammu and Kashmir, or to target senior army officers, including present army chief General Bikram Singh.
"What the J and K Chief Minister is saying is motivated and is his personal agenda," General Singh said.
"If this unit (TSD) was allowed to function properly, the cross border terrorism you are seeing today, would not have happened," he further stated.
"Anyone who says that this (TSD) is a private army, doesn't know anything about the armed forces," General Singh said.
Emphatically stating that he would wholeheartedly welcome a White Paper on the entire controversy that was being linked to him, he said: "There are a lot of probes going on, what has happened to them? This is an orchestrated campaign against me by a few people."
"This is very interesting. I have been accused of toppling the Indian Government, and now the Jammu and Kashmir Government. It is hogwash," General Singh said, adding that he was being targetted because he had shared the dais with BJP leader Narendra Modi at an ex-servicemen's rally in Rewari, Haryana last Sunday.
Singh said the Indian Army in Jammu and Kashmir works solely to stabilise, and said that the allegations against him are part of a vote bank agenda in the lead-up to the 2014 general elections in the country.
General Singh also denied having any close links with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and said he is a nationalist whose main mission has been to awaken the people and create awareness to ensure that there is a corrupt-free system in the country.
"If being a nationalist, if thinking about the nation always portrays you as BJP, then I think people need to get their heads examined. I have got good relations with all parties. It's not just BJP. I go anywhere with anybody whom I feel is going to do well for this country," he said in an exclusive interview to ANI.
Media reports has claimed that General (Retd.) Singh set up a special unit in the army which tried to destabilize the Jammu and Kashmir Government.
The report claims that a secret Board of Officers inquiry has recommended that the CBI look into the matter.
Confirming the findings of an army inquiry panel into the dubious workings of a secret intelligence unit set up in 2010 by General (Retd.) Singh, the government on Friday said it had taken steps to prevent such 'undesirable activities', but was yet to decide about ordering a CBI inquiry.
Media report also claims that the unit set up by General (Retd.) Singh called the Technical Services Division (TSD), a part of Military Intelligence, tried to block General Bikram Singh's promotion.
The reports said that the Board of Officers' recommendation has been examined by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the Ministry of Defence.
