A Public Interest Litigation has been filed in the Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking NIA probe into the “toolkit” said to be created by the All India Congress Committee to defame India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi amidst the ongoing pandemic.
#Breaking | PIL filed in Supreme Court seeking NIA probe into the alleged ‘toolkit’ row; demands suspension of Congress party’s registration if found true. pic.twitter.com/YrBRIpoHQv
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) May 19, 2021
The PIL filed by lawyer Shashank Shekhar Jha has made the Indian National Congress a Party to the petition while making the Union of India and Election Commission as respondents before the Apex Court.
The petition also seeks the suspension of the Congress party if the allegations made against them of creating the “toolkit document” are found to be true.
I’ve moved a Public Interest Litigation before Supreme Court seeking investigation of toolkit by NIA, to get guidelines by govt of India against hoardings and other anti-national acts and seeking suspension of membership of Congress if the allegations are true.#सत्यमेवजयते pic.twitter.com/qbXoid7sBd
— Shashank Shekhar Jha (@shashank_ssj) May 19, 2021
It is imperative to note that the toolkit contains the propagation of serious crimes such as blocking of beds amid the pandemic and release only upon orders.
Jha in his PIL specified that the matter must be probed to disclose any offence under section 120-B (Criminal Conspiracy), several sections of IPC and section 13 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The petition also sought direction to the Central Government to issue necessary guidelines to every political party to stop any kind of hoarding and to initiate strict action against the usage of images highlighting funerals, dead bodies or content naming the Covid-19 mutant after India considering it as anti-national.
While the Congress has outrightly denied the creation of the ‘toolkit document’, reports suggest that the author is in fact a member of the AICC. Saumya Varma whose name emerged as the creator of the document has now deleted all her social media accounts including that on LinkedIn.
AICC Chairman Rajeev Gowda too accepted to have created the Central Vista ‘toolkit’ or research document as they call it, however, continues to stay in denial of creating the anti-Modi toolkit.
Let’s be clear We made a research note on Central Vista for the party It’s genuine & fact-based. I tweeted yesterday that “COVID19 toolkit” is FORGED & is a MADE in BJP product. Patra is showing metadata/author of a real document & attributing it to a FAKEhttps://t.co/qHc52C8DWw
— Rajeev Gowda (@rajeevgowda) May 19, 2021
While OpIndia cannot comment on the authenticity of the documents, there indeed are similarities between both the leaked anti-Modi toolkit and the Central Vista ‘research’ document.