Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 8 (IANS) Sanjeev Saxena, a former private secretary to now expelled Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh and an accused in the cash-for-votes scam, Monday told a Delhi court that police had pressurised him to sign a paper which accused several political leaders of being a part of the scam.

The paper mentioned the names of several political leaders who were termed as the “kingpins of the scam,” Saxena’s counsel Santosh Pandey told Special Judge Sangita Dhingra Sehgal, as he moved Saxena’s bail plea.

The leaders mentioned were - Digvijay Singh, Ahmed Patel, J.D. Seelam, Motilal Vora, Sheila Dikshit, Rajiv Shukla, Oscar Fernandes, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Ramgopal Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Amar Singh, Reoti Raman Singh, Arun Jaitley, Sudheendra Kulkarni and other leaders from different political parties.

“The police officials, during remand of applicant (Saxena), pressurised him to sign on a pre-typed statement which was in the name of the applicant. When the applicant had gone through those said pre-typed sheets, he was shocked and surprised that there were names…of leaders from different political parties mentioned as they were kingpins of the cash-for-vote episode in parliament,” the application stated.

Saxena, however, declined to sign the “pre-typed” statement.

The court has issued notice, returnable by Aug 18, to the Crime Branch on the issue.

Saxena further alleged that police forced him to sign a blank paper and he suspects that they may misuse it.

He told the court that he never worked with Amar Singh and was instead working with Shahid Sidiqui, another general secretary of the Samajwadi Party then.

Just because Amar Singh was his boss’s colleague, he had a little interaction with him, he said.

Slammed by the Supreme Court for a shoddy probe into the cash-for-votes scam, Delhi Police first arrested Saxena July 17.

He has been booked for various offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, the police said.

The case was registered in 2009 on the recommendation of a parliamentary panel which had probed the scam dating back to the July 2008 trust vote sought by the United Progressive Alliance-I government.

On July 22, 2008, three BJP MPs waved wads of currency notes on the floor of the Lok Sabha ahead of the vote, alleging they were given the money to vote in favour of the Manmohan Singh government.

The vote was called after the Left parties withdrew support over the India-US nuclear agreement.