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The Union Cabinet on Thursday gave its nod for setting up of a commission of inquiry to investigate the allegations that Gujarat government illegally spied on a woman on the orders of Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s close aide Amit Shah, reports timesofindia.com.
The panel will probe the alleged surveillance of a young woman architect by the Gujarat government. The inquiry has been approved under Section 3 of the Commission of Inquiry Act of 1952.
The BJP has said that it would challenge the investigation in court and called the move motivated.
"BJP shall meet with all the challenges. Public opinion through the elections results shows that people have lost faith in the government. This is a fascist Congress with its emergency mindset trying to investigate a matter which is already being investigated,” BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said.
The charges assume political significance given that the Gujarat has a government led by Modi, the BJP Prime Ministerial candidate for 2014 elections.
The commission is likely to be headed by a retired Supreme Court judge and will submit its report within three months.
The proposal for setting up the probe panel was mooted by the Home Ministry, which had suggested that it should be headed by a sitting or a retired Supreme Court Judge.
The Centre's decision over-rules the contention of the Gujarat government that it was a state matter and it had already appointed a commission for probe into the matter.
The Union Cabinet's decision came against the backdrop of fresh claims that the alleged snooping was conducted beyond the state of Gujarat.
Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde had already said many women organisations and NGOs had given representations to President Pranab Mukherjee demanding a probe into alleged snooping on the woman.
Web portal gulail.com had on Wednesday claimed that the snooping of the woman allegedly at the behest of Modi was not only confined to Gujarat but extended to Karnataka as well.
The portal, which along with another portal cobrapost. com, had first exposed the matter, alleged that Gujarat police had in 2009 contacted its Karnataka counterpart during the Chief Ministership of B S Yedyurrapa for intercepting the telephone of the woman when she was living in Bangalore.
