Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday to take action against those who had “conspired” to lodge a “false case” against Amar Singh and actor Amitabh Bachchan to defame them.

Addressing a media conference, he alleged that the FIR had been lodged at the behest of Chief Minister Mayawati and dared her to order the arrest of Amar Singh if she had any evidence against him.

Questioning the legal validity of the FIR, he said: “Investigation into the charges levelled in the FIR is beyond the jurisdiction of the state government. If there is any irregularity in the companies, only the Union Ministry of Company Affairs and the Company Law Board are the competent authorities to take action”.

Praising AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh for condemning the FIR, he said: “I thank the Congress for condemning the incident, but the Prime Minister should intervene in this matter.”

The Congress, he said, should not confine itself to merely condemning the incident. The Congress leaders should prevail on the Prime Minister to take action against those who have hatched the conspiracy to malign Amar Singh Amitabh Bachchan, he added.

“If the conspirators are not brought to book, all those active in public life will be vulnerable to such conspiracies aimed at character assassination.”

He said Amar Singh and Amitabh Bachchan were not the only targets of the conspiracy. “The FIR says ‘Amar Singh and others’, so anybody can be framed in course of the investigation.”

... contd.