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Deeply disappointed with the Congress’ decision of not fielding Priyanka Gandhi from Varanasi: Arun Jaitley

Earlier today, it was announced by the Congress party that Priyanka Gandhi will not contest against Prime Minister Modi from Varanasi. The party has decided to field Ajay Rai against Narendra Modi from his constituency, Varanasi, from where he is expected to win with a huge margin.

While the Congress party’s decision was along expected lines, it did cause a meltdown among their supporters in the media. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley penned his thoughts on the matter today and shared them on Facebook. We have reproduced his blog on the issue in its entirety below:

Refuge in Wayanad and a Refuge Away From Varanasi – The Story of a Family Dynasty

Today, two major political developments have taken place. The first was the huge roadshow of the Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi at Varanasi from where he is contesting the 2019 election. The roadshow culminated in the customary Ganga Aarti. If the size of the support expressed at the roadshow is any indication, the Prime Minister is well on the way repeating or even increasing the 2014 victory margin. Even a casual visitor to Varanasi would tell you the difference which the Prime Minister has made in his constituency in the last five years. The new highways, the arterial roads, the Ghats, the railway station, the airport, the steamer in the Ganga and the modernisation of the electricity systems are only a few examples of the change that has happened in Varanasi. The proposed corridor connecting the Ganga Ghats with the Kashi Vishwanath Temple puts a new life into one of the world’s oldest cities.
The second important development is the surreptitious announcement by the Congress Party, fielding a political lightweight, against the Prime Minister. The build-up of the last two weeks had been that Priyanka Gandhi would be fielded against the Prime Minister. She rejoiced in giving daily bytes to the media that she was ready to take on the Prime Minister. Her brother claimed that the Party was building up the suspense for an eventual thriller. Obviously, she quietly chickened out of the contest. I am deeply disappointed with the Congress Party’s decision of not fielding Priyanka Gandhi from Varanasi. The last two months that she has been in the public life has driven home the point – “India has changed, dynasties don’t matter”. The myths of Priyanka Gandhi stand eroded. India’s conventional wisdom has been ‘बंद मुट्ठी लाख की, खुल गयी तो ख़ाक की’. The myth of ‘Priyanka will make a difference’ was worth a lakh. Today, the myth has lost its value. The cards are out in the open for public scrutiny. The Gandhis must introspect the plight of Amethi and RaeBareli in the last forty years and compare it to what the Prime Minister has done in Varanasi in the past five years.
I had only hoped that Varanasi will give the new India an opportunity to decide the fate of a tried, tested and successful leader as against a new political dynast. Just repeating the same five sentences several times a day and not getting out of the obsession of ‘हमारा परिवार’ does not impress ‘New India’ any more. I am sad that new India has been denied the opportunity to establish that it does not accept inexperienced dynasts with no other credentials. India is not a banana republic. It is the world’s largest democracy. There is one additional point that this episode established. It is only juvenile politics, where a family lives under an illusion that people will accept it irrespective of credentials, which persuades you to build a climax of Priyanka taking on the Prime Minister and then suffer the wrath of the anti-climax.

There is no difference between Leftist terrorism and Islamic Jihad, none at all

First of all, I want to make it clear that I have nothing to do with what the so called revolutionaries like Lenin, Mao or Marx wrote, what their views were, or whatever any heavenly book in the hands of terrorists says about any religion. This is because such thoughts or the bookish conversations have no connection with the truth and the ground reality. Therefore, I am more interested in what happens in the name of someone’s ideology or some verses in some book rather than some interpretation given somewhere claiming that we are a peace loving people and that we are carrying out a proletarian revolution.

I have been witnessing the disgusting outcome of such symbols everyday, therefore I would rather put my views based on my own experiences, and the experience of my society, than going by the excuses given for the massacre carried out by Lenin and mass genocide carried out by Mao. I don’t believe the statements like “murder of one human being is the murder of humanity” written in some random chapter of a random book because these are things are meant to only to be quoted, but have nothing to do with reality.

What is Communism? It is a bloody ideology in the name of which around 12000 murders were committed in the last 20 years which included the sacrifices of around 2700 security personnel. In whose name were these murders committed? In the name of people, ordinary people, in the name of poor and destitute. Who were among the dead? Did the butchered people belong to the class of some John Travolta sort of people travelling in private jets, or some people like Johnny Depp spending their vacations on some private island?

Definitely not. Ninety percent of the people in India are either poor or extremely poor. The statistics of death are governmental, and those who died were the people who were somehow surviving with the limited resources in India. They were the same ordinary people who find a mention in the conversations of People’s War Group and People’s Liberation Army and the likes.

Murders are just a number that can be big or small, that your or I can measure but what about those 68 districts where people are forced to live under the shadow of Maoist and Naxal terror? Can that fear be measured? Can the rapes of those girls or the violence inflicted on those families be measured in numbers? Perhaps not.

The word ‘proletariat’ is a shield for these Communists. Mass revolution is a mere means for them to get power for their own selfish interests. You can keep singing praises of these leftists and drum up the ‘revolutionary’ narrative, but the fact is every Leftist leader has history of mainstreaming violence and lechery. Sexual exploitation and rape of women by feeding them rhetoric like ‘Your body is the property of Commune’ is the trademark of such ‘Kampanthis’ (perverts) cadres.

You listen to their leaders and you find out how they have used words to show people dreams and wherever they have ruled they have brought the flood of political killings. I recall a statement of a leader belonging to this ideology, he was CPM General Secretary Vijayan, who had advised his party workers to adopt the tactics of Bengali Communists of burying their opponents alive along with sacks of salt so that even their bones are not found by the police. This statement exposes the reality of the two Communist-ruled states of India. The number of political killings carried out in these states can be found by a search on Google.

Now a discussion about why I linked them with the Jihadis of ISIS. It is very easy to believe so. Both these ideologies are terrorising and violent, and taking people’s lives is justified in both. Islamists say that violence in the name of religion is justified, the illegitimate progeny of Communists, Kampanthis (perverts) and Lenin say that whoever comes in the way of revolution will be killed. Both of these receive foreign funding. Extorting money through abduction has been the principle way of procuring funds for both. Obtaining money through extortion and threats is the main way of securing funds in Naxal-hit areas in India. There is deep involvement of foreign countries in both these ways. The Central or the State government has been providing political handling and patronage to both keeping its own interests in mind.

One had the aim of bringing everyone under the rule of Khalifa (Caliph) while on the other side it is the Commune. On one side Islam, the religion and Muslim, hold better significance than their society or nation itself, on the other side the dedication for Commune is so strong that if India and China got to war, the Indian communists will be standing with China. Ideology becomes supreme and those kafirs obstructing the work of God are killed, slaughtered, riddled with bullets, gets crushed under a truck or gets blasted off by an angel of peace exploding in a market place.

On the other side, Commune becomes so paramount that these people do not think once before killing CRPF soldiers, school teachers, and those government workers who are the sole bread earners in their families and come from poor strata. When surrounded they use children as shields and even sew bombs in the corpses of their communist kaam-raids (not comrade but kaam-raids) so that their dead bodies could be blown up to sacrifice few more soldiers coming from poor families in the name of Communism.

Both these ideologies survive on fear and terror. The Muslim to whom they sell the dreams of progress leads the worst life in these areas and basic amenities still elude those villagers ‘ruled’ by Naxals. The fact is, if basic facilities like roads, schools, hospitals reached villagers then the purposes of the lives of these terrorists, communist vultures will be over. Because, when they sit in the closed rooms, drinking alcohol and smoking weed, they tend to lecture about poverty and what not. However, their real lives turn out to be exactly opposite.

Both these ideologies walk under the flags stained with the blood of the poor, the innocent and the weak. The proponents of both these ideologies might speak of rejecting intoxication but they use these intoxicated terrorists use this opium to recruit people. Intoxication is not only caused by narcotic substances, but it can also be caused by ideas, ideas like bringing the whole world under the flag of Islam or the ideas of dreaming of a day when the whole world would lie under the feet of the proletariat.

When or where did a leader gift the world to the proletariat? The so-called guards of Islamic values rape women at night and preach them to wear burkas in the day to avoid the gaze of men. Similarly, on one hand, these Kampanthis ridiculously talk about democratic values but on the other hand, they do not hesitate in burying their enemies alive, chopping them in the middle of the road or even in misusing the state machinery to make hundreds of people disappear. Their young progeny, Kanhaiya, who was accused of flashing his genitals in public, reportedly unleashed his goons on people who showed him black flags in Korai village, Begusarai who beat up and barged into people’s houses and assaulted them.

Therefore, let’s talk about the ground reality. What is actually happening must be discussed. We must also remember how the entire nations and the leaders influenced by Marx’s vision of society have become dictators. If Islam is the religion of peace, then why is silent over the killings of people in its name?

So, tell me why should I go by what is written in a book or the Communist Manifesto? A lot of things were written in our books as well, which were set ablaze with the fire of Islamic terror. Although, JNU is claimed to be a place of education and freedom pervades but ‘Bharat tere tukde honge’ is what comes out of it.

Then what difference remains between the Communist way of eliminating their opponents from power and the ISIS’ goal of establishing Caliphate? Both are bloodied ideologies. Why should I get an orgasm admiring their manifesto and how incredible Marx’s beard looks! For me, the red colour in the flag symbolises the colour of mass genocide of crores of people who were sacrificed for Communism, Leninism and Kampanthi ideology.

Therefore, when I say that such revolutions are not relevant anymore, I mean to say that the trend of Czars and kings is gone from the world. Now the poor elect their leaders through voting. Now it is some political party that provides a roof over the head of the proletariat, provides them basic amenities like cooking gas, electricity, hospital and school.

Is the scheme like Ayushman Bharat not for the poor? Are the schemes meant for poor people not for the backward classes? Are the electricity bulbs hanging in households, not for the disadvantaged? Will toilet facilities and the cleaning of river Ganga not benefit the poor? Do millions of homes not belong to those who are destitute?

Then who are these libidinous kaam-raids (comrades) who are going to benefit by making terrorists like Lenin and Mao their ideals? Every party is talking about the backward. Congress is also talking about eliminating poverty, BJP is also spending an amount of Rs 1,08,000 every year per person for providing subsidies or schemes to the poor. Kejriwal, Mayawati, Akhilesh, Lalu, Naidu, Mamata, Kumaraswamy, Yogi and Modi, everyone is talking about the poor.

Then, what poor are these Communists planning of giving power to? The picture is clear, they are all thieves whose aim is something else. History knows about which Communist or Socialist has actually empowered the destitute. When a ‘backward’ like Lalu came to power, he not only did the biggest scam of his times but also deliberately deprived the people of education.

This is why they hide in forests conspiring to break the country, to destabilise the governments and acting like a support system for different kind terrorists. Their life’s purpose has been limited to stopping a few villagers from voting and laugh like chirkuts (no parallel in English) at this stupid feat. In the coming five years, these lice will be combed out of forests and thus the last nails will be hammered in the coffin of their ideology. Only the right government was needed, that can call a terrorist by its name, and does not downplay by referring to them as Communists, extremists and militants.

Such a government came and they shrank, when the same government will come again, there is no need to say where these Lal Salaams will go.

This article is a translation of this Hindi article. The translation has been done by Aditi Singh.

Arvind Kejriwal wants AAP workers to abandon whatever they’re doing and come to Delhi to help ‘BJP lose’

The Aam Aadmi Party chief and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has requested AAP workers across the country ‘except’ those in Haryana and Punjab to take leave till elections and join him in Delhi for campaigning for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.


In a post uploaded on Twitter, Arvind Kejriwal has asked all AAP workers to come to Delhi and help the Delhi AAP state unit for defeating the BJP on all the 7 seats in Delhi. As per many opinion polls, BJP is poised to sweep all 7 seats in Delhi.

Kejriwal’s requests have also generated some amusing reactions on Twitter. Rebel MLA Kapil Mishra taunted Kejriwal saying that there are no AAP workers left in Delhi.


It is pertinent to note that Arvind Kejriwal’s entreaty has been addressed to all the AAP workers across the country except Haryana and Punjab. Perhaps, Kejriwal has realised that AAP’s predicament in other states in the country is a foregone conclusion. It was also evident in the frantic attempts he had made to Congress to form an alliance.

It is also notable that Arvind Kejriwal was desperately seeking to form an alliance with Congress in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab to mount a collective offense against the mighty BJP but due to disagreement over the distribution of the seats and the nature of alliance, Congress turned down the obsessive pleadings made by AAP leaders to stitch an alliance and fight the elections jointly.

Fact-Check: Does RSS really want the BJP to remove Sadhvi Pragya as its candidate from Bhopal?

Fake News has become extremely normalized and one of the downsides of social media is the velocity at which false information spreads. While mainstream fact-checkers dedicate the entirety of their resources towards fact-checking claims that tend to lean towards only one particular end of the political spectrum, the other side is often ignored.

Recently, a letter went viral on social media which was purportedly written by Suresh Soni, an RSS Karyakarta. According to the letter, the RSS demanded that the BJP withdraw Sadhvi Pragya as its candidate from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. The letter remarks that Sadhvi Pragya’s ‘unnecessary remarks against a martyr is negating the political gains made through the Pulwama attack’.

An article based on the letter was published by a website called MediaVigil.

Even in the website’s own article, it is written that they could not confirm the authenticity of the letter from the sources they contacted. It begs the question, why they would publish an inflammatory letter when they could not even confirm its authenticity.

Intriguingly enough, a Karyakarta of the RSS had already tweeted that the letter was fake the day before MediaVigil published its article.


Under such circumstances, it appears bewildering that MediaVigil went ahead and published an article based on a letter the authenticity of which it couldn’t confirm itself and which was already called out for being fake a day earlier by an RSS Karyakarta on Twitter. Therefore, it appears to be a remarkable case of sheer incompetence on the part of the outlet or plain malice to create fissures between the RSS and the BJP while the elections are on.

Netizens play Jagga Jasoos as Arvind Kejriwal resurfaces days after rumours of him beaten up by AAP MLAs went viral

Aam Aadmi Party supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal made a public appearance after a long time today during the release of AAP Manifesto for 2019 General Elections. He had been missing in action since past few days and he didn’t even accompany any of his party leaders when they went to file their nominations. However, two days back social media was abuzz with rumours that AAP MLAs got fed up of his abusive behaviour and beat him up.

While AAP never officially confirmed or denied Kejriwal being beaten up, Twitterati decided to take it upon themselves to look for signs on assault on Kejriwal as he addressed the media today. Twitter users pointed out that Kejriwal’s nose appears a little swollen which could mean he was indeed beaten up.


Twitter users even shared ‘before and after’ pictures of the time when Kejriwal had gone missing in action to show that he indeed has a broken nose.


Apparently, vigilant Twitterati were also able to notice a difference in frames of his spectacles, which fuelled speculations that he got his frame changed after his old pair of glasses broke when he was allegedly beaten up. Another Twitter user zoomed in to a terrifying degree to prove that Kejriwal had scratches on his nose where he was reportedly punched allegedly by his own MLAs.


Many also expressed relief that he had stepped out of the house after so many days.


While OpIndia could not independently verify whether Kejriwal was beaten up by his own MLAs, we sure were glad that he appeared hale and hearty and that he even had a new pair of glasses.

TMC goons allegedly burn down BJP worker’s poultry farm in Birbhum

West Bengal has been a witness to several incidents of political turmoil and violent skirmishes, especially during polling seasons, under Trinamool Congress supremo and the state’s chief minister Mamata Banerjee’ regime.

In yet another incident of such hooliganism amidst the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, a BJP workers’ poultry farm in Nanoor area of Birbhum district, West Bengal was set ablaze in the wee hours of the morning, allegedly by Trinamool Congress cadres, reports Times Now.

BJP worker Saptarshi Gupta was reportedly targetted by TMC goons for attending Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally in Bolpur district a day ago. Saptarshi Gupta returned home last night after attending Modi’s rally and later woke up to flames at his poultry farm. The fire had charred over 2500 chickens. Though the BJP has alleged that the TMC goons are behind the incident, no arrests have been made so far.

The Trinamool Congress cadres, under the West Bengal ruling government’s protection, have been unleashing their atrocities on those who speak or work in support of BJP. With Mamata Banerjee at the helm of affairs in West Bengal, TMC goons are empowered to carry out their depraved activities with impunity.

As tensions between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party rages on amidst the ongoing elections, several such incidents are being regularly reported. Both BJP worker’s and leaders in West Bengal have been regular targets of the TMC goons.

Recently, Netaji Subash Chandra Bose’ kin who is also a new induction into the BJP, Chandra Kumar Bose, complained of being heckled by TMC goons during clashes which erupted between BJP and TMC cadres in South Kolkata.

Almost on the same day, a TMC goon was audaciously caught on camera brandishing a gun during a roadshow in the Birbhum Lok Sabha constituency.

Previously, a BJP worker Apurba Chakraborty was brutally beaten up by TMC goons in Islampur, West Bengal. On the day of the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections, the body of a BJP worker Sishu Pal Sahish was found hanging in Purulia.

Similarly, a BJP worker, Ajit Murmu, had died in the hospital where he was admitted after being allegedly thrashed by TMC workers in Bankura’s Ranibandh. A day prior to this, in yet another act of brutality, barely a day after PM Modi’s huge rally in Siliguri, the body of a man has been found at the BJP booth office there.

Recently a TMC MLA  Sovan Chatterjee and his friend Baishakhi Chatterjee were confined to a bungalow as there were speculations of him and his friend joining the BJP. Baishakhi Chatterjee was also given rape threats.

Last year in the month of May, a 6-month pregnant woman who was relative of a BJP candidate in Panchayat Elections in West Bengal was allegedly raped by TMC activists in Nadia district.

Last year TMC had won 20,000 seats uncontested in West Bengal Panchayat elections amidst the allegations that the party which fielded its candidates on all rural seats, had prevented the filing of nominations by resorting to violence.

This time with BJP making successful inroads in West Bengal and amiably capturing the political space vacated by the Left Front, Mamata Banerjee, and her squad, surely unnerved by this unprecedented development, have been resorting to all sorts of techniques to hold on to their slithering position.

Facepalm: Congress’ latest poll promise of returning money to victims of PACL fraud is already being fulfilled under Modi govt

The Congress party on Thursday issued a statement through one of its official social media handles voicing its commitment towards the victims of various chit fund scams, and victims of the Pearl Agrotech Corporation Limited (PACL) fraud in particular.


In its statement, the Congress party said, “The Congress party wishes to state that within 6 months of government formation, 5.85 crore families afflicted by PACL will be ensured payment with interest according to the February 2, 2016 decision of the Supreme Court as well as pass stringent laws to curb such scams which attack the right to dignity of each citizen.”

The Congress party appears to have picked up the issue after The Wire ran a story regarding some victims of the fraud protesting the issue at Narendra Modi’s rally in Chittorgarh, Rajasthan. In its report, the leftist propaganda website alleged that no concrete steps have been taken by the NDA government to refund the money as per the directions of the Supreme Court.

But in reality, the SEBI has been soliciting applications from those who had invested money in PACL. The last date for submitting these applications is 30th of April, 2019. SEBI had already initiated the procedure of returning Rs. 49,000 crores to 6 crore investors in February.

As for the fraud itself, it dates back to 1997 when PACL first began mobilization of funds. After receiving a complaint, SEBI in 1999 issued letters directing the PACL to comply with the provisions of the collective investment scheme (CIS) Regulations. The PACL took the matter to the Courts and claimed that its scheme did not fall under CIS and challenged the constitutional validity of the CIS itself. The matter spent a lot of time in the Court the following years.

Ultimately, the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) in 2015 directed PACL and its promoter-director to refund the money within 3 months. And in 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that that the money lying in the bank accounts of the company and other cash belonging to it should be released in favour of SEBI so that the money can be refunded to the investors.

And as mentioned above, SEBI initiated the process of returning the money in February this and the last date for applying for a refund ends is the last day of the month of April. Therefore, a major step in the process in returning the money will be concluded even before the elections are concluded, and the Congress party will have nothing to do even it somehow comes to power.

We had an alliance with the Congress, but found that their ego is too big: Akhilesh Yadav

Samajwadi Party (SP) President Akhilesh Yadav hit out Congress Party saying that the party’s ego is too big. Yadav who has formed an alliance with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha elections, slammed his former allies for the UP assembly elections.

Likening Congress with the BJP, Yadav said, “Like the BJP, the Congress too believes in threatening political opponents, We had an alliance with the Congress, but found that their ego is too big”.

Yadav, who was addressing an election rally in Kanpur, accused Congress of betraying the Samajwadi Party. “If there is somebody who has betrayed the Samajwadi Part then it is the Congress”, he added.

Samajwadi Party had an alliance with the Congress in 2017 UP Assembly elections.  Acknowledging their past alliance, Yadav said, “It is true that we had an alliance with the Congress but we did not know they are so arrogant. Arrogance was more important for them than the alliance”.

He said that it is the SP-BSP alliance that is giving a tough competition to the BJP and not the Congress. “The Congress is not stopping the BJP, it’s the SP-BSP alliance which is stopping the BJP,” he said.

Prior to Yadav’s rally in Kanpur, a bull had entered the helipad area which was created for the helicopters to land. The bull’s entry caused a ruckus among the people who started running around. The police had to step in to bring the situation under control. Akhilesh later shared a Tweet with the photo of the bull stating that the present UP government is unable to control the menace of stray animals.

Tenders floated for India’s first undersea tunnel for Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project

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Bids have been invited for India’s first undersea tunnel, which will be a part of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train corridor being built by the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL).

The underground tunnel would be 21km long from Bandra Kurla Complex to Kalyan Shilphata in Maharashtra. The tunnel would have 1.8km built on the sea bed, 7km under the Thane creek and the remaining would be built under mangroves on either side of the creek. The total length of the corridor from Mumbai to Ahmedabad would be 508km.

The tender was issued for the construction of the tunnel as well as testing and commissioning for double line high-speed railway using tunnel boring machine (TBM) and new Austrian tunnelling method (NATM) for the project. Bids can be submitted at the NHSRCL office from 26th April to 22nd August this year, and the Technical Bid will be opened on 23rd August in the presence of representatives of the bidders. A pre-bid meeting has also be organised on 24th May for the eligible bidders/

The project is to be completed in 1,280 days or 3.5 years. A geo-technical investigation of the undersea tunnel area was conducted last year by a team of engineers from NHSRCL, RITES Ltd and Japan’s Kawasaki Geological Engineering. To determine the density of the rock under the sea bed, a survey was done by using static refraction technique (SRT) to study the sea bed. The final report was submitted last year.

Apex institutes like Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Mangroves Survey of India (MSI), National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) have studied the environmental impact of the project area and have given environment clearance for the project claimed NHSRCL.

“ZSI in their report have stated that there is minimal disturbance to the wildlife in this region. No mangroves will be cut in this area as it will be an undersea/underground tunnel 20-40 meters below the ground/sea level,” said Sushma Gaur, NHSRCL spokesperson.

The NHSRCL spokesperson had also said that all related environmental clearances from authorities such as Coastal Regulation Management Authority, the National Board of Wildlife and the forest department have been received or principally agreed for approval.
The bullet train project is to be completed by August 2022 and the trains would be travelling at speeds greater than 300 km/hr. There would 12 stations between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. India would have to pay Rs.7000 crores for 18 bullet trains from Japan.

Supreme Court directs probe into allegations of conspiracy against CJI Ranjan Gogoi

The Supreme Court has today ordered that a former SC judge Justice A K Patnaik hold an inquiry regarding the alleged conspiracy by disgruntled employees and fixers to malign CJI Gogoi. The bench which passed the order consisted of Justices Arun Misra, RF Nariman, and Deepak Gupta.

The Court in its order instructed the chiefs of CBI, Delhi Police and Intelligence Bureau to provide assistance to Justice Patnaik in his inquiry. Rejecting the claim of privilege raised by Advocate Utsav Bains, the court has ordered him to divulge all information regarding the issue to the probe team.

The probe was ordered after Bains had filed an affidavit in the suo moto proceedings initiated by the Court claiming that the sexual harassment allegations against CJI are part of a larger conspiracy by ‘fixers’ and dissatisfied employees to implicate the CJI, as he sought to end the ‘cash for judgment’ racket. He also stated that he was offered Rs.1.5 crores by an SC fixer for that purpose.

Contending that powerful people can’t and will not be allowed to meddle into the functioning of the apex court, Justice Arun Mishra said that the time has come to act against them. “It is time to tell the rich and mighty that they cannot run the SC. They are playing with fire,” the statement said.

The apex court has asserted said that the inquiry about the allegations of conspiracy will not deal with the allegations of sexual harassment against the CJI. It reassured that the outcome of the inquiry will have no bearing on the in-house committee which is dealing with the accusation against the CJI.

The court also said that on the completion of the inquiry, Retd Justice Patnaik will file a report in a sealed envelope to the court after which the matter will be heard again. The hearing on this inquiry is going to be held in parallel with the hearing of the in-house committee report on the allegations of sexual harassment. Many prominent women lawyers have raised concerns claiming that this might influence the proceedings of the court.