Kapil Sibal threatens to sue Smriti Irani over ‘land scam’ allegations

Congress leader Kapil Sibal on Thursday played down Union Minister Smriti Irani’s allegations of striking a deal with a man accused of money laundering in South Africa.

Terming the allegations as an attempt to divert public attention from CBSE paper and data leak, Sibal threatened to sue Irani and the website she cited for levelling the charges.

“It is sad that in this country, economics and maths exam papers are leaked which never happened in the past. I have also been the HRD minister. If you talk about Election Commission, election dates are leaked. If you look at Aadhaar, data is leaked. But when they have to protect their own degrees, the information never leaks. So the government knows how to protect information, what they don’t want to be leaked is not leaked,” the Congress leader said.

Earlier in the day, citing a media report, Irani alleged that Sibal and his wife bought a company called Grand Castilo in 2017 from a businessman named Piyoosh Goyal.

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She claimed that Goral was involved in money laundering and was investigated by the CBI in 2013 for alleged bribery.

She also demanded an explanation from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi over the alleged land dealing.

“People might say that Mr Sibal has a right to buy and engage with the so-called alleged money launderer, the question I pose is - is it politically acceptable to Sri Rahul Gandhi,” Irani told reporters in New Delhi.

“Is it so natural for the Congress leadership today to embrace the money launderer, to shake hand with those that they had investigated for bribery,” she asked.

The Congress leader, however, admitted that he had purchased the land from his own money and said the transaction was also listed in his and his company’s income tax filings.

“Yes, I brought the company. Does anyone have objections? I gave the money from my income, which is tax paid and the income tax returns are filed up to date,” he told reporters.