Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today alleged that advocate Prashant Bhushan had illegally purchased a tea garden in Kandbari in Palampur, a day after Bhushan filed a PIL in Delhi Hight Court accusing the CM of corruption.
Singh alleged that Bhushan had purchased the tea garden in the name of Kumud Bhushan Educational Society, which was illegal as there was a total ban on selling of tea gardens in the state to non-agriculturists.
In a statement issued here, the chief minister said, "The matter regarding illegal purchase of tea garden by Bhushan was also vociferously raised by political parties during the movement of Anna Hazare, of which he was a part.
"Apprehending legal action in this illegal land purchase case, Bhushan, as a counsel for NGO Common Cause, filed PIL in Delhi High Court against me," Singh claimed.
NGO Common Cause has filed PIL in the Delhi High Court seeking a court-supervised CBI probe against Singh for alleged corruption and amassing of disproportionate assets.
Accusing "BJP and comrade-in-arms" of making malicious personal attacks on him to sully his image, Singh said he was not afraid of these "tactics".
"I have faced such baseless accusations in the past also and come clean on all the false cases fabricated against me by previous BJP governments. This time also, all the wild allegations made against me would fall flat," he said.
Singh said during the last assembly elections in November 2012, national BJP leaders, including Arun Jaitley, had personally targeted him during the election campaign. "Wild and baseless accusations about my Income Tax returns and alleged favours to Ispat Industry were made," he said.
However, Jaitley had not only illegally procured details of his income tax returns, which cannot be obtained even under RTI without the consent of the assesses, but had also flashed them at a press conference in Shimla, "withholding" parts of it to suit the political motive of the BJP, he said.
Claiming that he always believed in clean politics and good-governance, Singh dismissed the charge of political vendetta against BJP and denied having indulged in victimisation.
He said the probes into alleged misrule of the previous BJP government were being carried out by investigating agencies as per law on the basis of charge sheet submitted by Congress and pointed out that the charge sheet was prepared and submitted to the President of India by a committee constituted by the AICC, of which he was not even a member.
