GUWAHATI, Jan 25: Raj Bhavan has expressed its dissatisfaction over the reply furnished by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to substantiate its charges alleging Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta's involvement in the multi-crore Letters of Credit (LoC) scam. A Raj Bhavan statement issued here yesterday claimed the CBI's reply was inadequate to convince Governor S K Sinha to accord sanction for carrying out investigations against Mahanta.Sources at Raj Bhavan also alleged that the CBI was yet to submit several important documents related to the scam. ``Although most of the documents asked for have been furnished, some important papers have not been made available,'' they said.
Earlier, seeking further proof from the CBI regarding its allegations that Mahanta was involved in the LoC scam, the Governor had asked the investigating agency to submit as many as 13 additional documents supporting its charges. However, none of these documents are reported to have been submitted with the recent
reply.
On January 6, the CBI had stated that it would submit its replies to the 23 queries raised by the Governor ``within a day or two''. But it took over two weeks to do so.
According to sources, the CBI's reply is quite voluminous, ``running into several hundred pages''. The Governor is expected to take some time to study the papers. But despite the bulk of the reply, Raj Bhavan remains unconvinced. Earlier, speaking to The Indian Express, Sinha had indicated as much, stating clearly that he was not the CBI's ``rubber stamp''.
The documents made available by the CBI to the Governor are reported to contain several hundred pages of confessional statements written in Assamese. This is expected to further delay the decision of the Governor.
However, a Raj Bhavan statement said that ``every effort will be made by the Governor to take a decision as soon as possible''.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
