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| PM distances himself with wife's cousin in the wake of DRI probe | | |
ABID SHAH
EARLY TIMES REPORT
NEW DELHI, APR 8: A Prime Minister's relative is in the spot because of alleged flouting of export norms for rice, forcing the Prime Minister's Office to issue a statement here to not to intervene in the probe by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in this regard.
The PMO has taken note of a report brought out in The Tribune, the main newspaper of Punjab. It says that the DRI officials raided last week the Chatha Rice Mill at Amritsar. It is owned by Jasbir Singh Chatha, a cousin of Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh's wife Gursharan Kaur.
The mill has been exporting Basmati Rice to Gulf and other countries. The raid was conducted since the export of rice other than Basmati has been banned by the Government. And it has been claimed that as many as 50 containers of rice filled by the mill meant to be shipped to Gulf have been sealed at Ludhiana's Dry Port. The report quotes the DRI Director Rajesh Jindal regarding the raid.
In the wake of the publication of the report in today's newspaper, the PMO issued a statement later in the evening.
The PMO statement says: "Prime Minister has come to know of a press report that certain export transaction of a relation of his is being looked into by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence. Neither the Prime Minister nor his office was aware of this matter till their attention was drawn to the report. The PM wishes to state emphatically that the probe into the transaction would proceed in accordance with the law and the laid down procedures without let or hindrance."
Last year newspapers had sought comments from Jasbir Singh Chatha in the wake of BJP's dubbing Manmohan Singh as a weak Prime Minister. This was during the run up to the last Lok Sbha polls. Chatha had refuted BJP's claims regarding the Prime Minister and said that Manmohan Singh bowed only before Sikh scriptures and thus could never be weak as alleged by his adversaries and detractors.
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