Clean chits to Scindia have tales to tell

The Madhya Pradesh Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Tuesday closed a case against former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and his family members, where they were accused of falsifying a property document while selling land, an official said.

Bhopal, March 24 The Madhya Pradesh Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Tuesday closed a case against former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and his family members, where they were accused of falsifying a property document while selling land, an official said.

The case shows how investigations for wrongdoing in such deals are handled depending on the persons' proximity to power. The case relates to the Scindias allegedly duping the buyer by over-measuring the piece of land in Gwalior by 6,000 sq ft while selling in 2009. As the clean chits go, they are hatched for suitable period to keep accused in suspense.

Scindia quit the Congress on March 10 and joined the BJP. His resignation from the Congress triggered a revolt in the Madhya Pradesh party unit, with 22 MLAs who belong to his camp also resigning. This led to the collapse of the Kamal Nath-led State government last week.

On March 12, when the Congress was in power in the State, the EOW decided to verify facts afresh into the complaint against the Scindias while the case was already 11-year-old.

"The complainant, Surendra Shrivastava, approached us for the second time on March 12 seeking a re-look into his complaint against Scindias. We forwarded the complaint to our Gwalior office which, after a re-investigation, closed it," an EOW official said.

According to sources in the EOW, it closed the case against on Friday. Incidentally Kamal Nath also stepped down as chief minister on Friday after his government was reduced to a minority.

On March 12, Shrivastava filed a fresh complaint against Scindia and his family, alleging that by falsifying a registry document they sold a smaller plot for a higher price, the EOW official said.

He initially lodged the complaint on March 26, 2014 against Scindia, who was then a Congress leader, and his family. But it was investigated and closed in May 2018 (when the BJP was in power in the State), the official said. It took over four years in the first instance and just over a week in the next.

( With inputs from IANS )