J&K Pradesh Congress Committee president and Union Water Resources Minister Prof Saifuddin Soz issued the notice and sought Sharma’s reply within a week.

On Tuesday, Azad said Sharma’s statement was not only false but would also lead to contempt of court since the High Court had been monitoring the investigations on a weekly basis. He termed Sharma’s statement “indecent”. “Neither the MP has met me nor has he ever met Soniaji. He has never even mentioned this issue to us. The suggestion that we recommended the removal of anybody’s name (from the list of people involved in the sex abuse scandal) is totally baseless,” he said.

The CM said if they wanted to shield anybody, the state Government wouldn’t have referred the case to the CBI. “It (the case) was well within the jurisdiction of the state Government, and we would have instead asked our police, the IGP or any other investigating agency not to take action in the case,” he added.

“We wanted a free and fair investigation. That’s why we referred the case to the premier investigating agency of the country,” he said. “While the CBI was conducting its probe, the High Court and the lawyers were monitoring the investigations on a weekly basis.”

However, Sharma’s statement has brought back to the political centre stage the sex abuse scandal — first reported by The Indian Express — and the J&K High Court’s observations regarding laxity in the CBI probe into the matter.

On October 8, 2007, the court had named state Transport Minister Hakeem Yaseen, MLAs Ghulam Hassan Khan and Yogesh Sawnhey, top ranking police and civilian officers against whom no action was taken.

Although Tara Chand or Perzada Mohammad Sayeed were not named in the High Court order, it had indicated that there was evidence against other top functionaries of the Government and directed the CBI to conduct a focused investigation into the case.

Meanwhile, Sharma has left for Delhi after being summoned by the high command. Sources said Azad had also left for Delhi apparently to discuss the matter, though his visit was being connected to his engagement with the Karnataka campaign for the next three days. Senior Congress leader Mangat Ram Sharma had also been asked to come to Delhi.