Thaindian News

New Delhi, April 20 (IANS) Stating that there were fresh attempts to tarnish the family’s image, Lokpal bill joint committee co-chair Shanti Bhushan’s son Jayant said Wednesday that the land in Noida allotted to them by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati allegedly at below cost prices was secured through due “process”.

The Bhushans have also said they would file a defamation case against the newspaper that reported that Shanti and Jayant Bhushan got two 10,000 sq metre plots “for a song”.

“We applied for the land through the process and got it. The allegations are just continuation of attempts to tarnish the reputation of my father and my brother who are members of the joint-committee to draft the Lokpal bill,” Shanti Bhushan’s younger son Jayant told reporters.

“If the number of applicants were more, then the draw should have been there; if it was not so, the process was wrong I believe,” Jayant said, adding that the family was ready to surrender the land if the procedure was wrong.

He denied taking any favours from the Mayawati government.

Shanti Bhushan and his son Prashant, who is also a member of the panel to form a law to fight corruption, have come under attack since the formation of the 10-member committee to draft the Lokpal (ombudsman) Bill.

Vikas Singh, the lawyer who has challenged the allotment of the Noida land in the Allahabad High Court, said he had not taken the name of the Bhushans.

“My petition doesn’t mention their name. I got an allotment, and I felt the allotment was only to people who were raising corruption issues in UP. So I filed a petition against it,” Vikas Singh told television channels.

Defending the Bhushans, activist and former Indian Police Service officer Kiran Bedi said the Bhushan family had got land through fair means.

“The government issued a scheme, they applied for it, anybody can apply, they applied. If the matter is before the court and the court scraps it, they say let it be scrapped, so what is the issue then?” Bedi, who was part of the movement led by Anna Hazare that prompted the joint panel to draft a more stringent law against corruption, told TimeNow.

Shanti Bhushan has been in the news for the circulation of a CD, which has a man purportedly meant to be the veteran lawyer telling Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and former party general secretary Amar Singh that a judge could be “fixed” for Rs.4 crore.