In the phone tapping case, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's OSD will be questioned by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police on Friday. The Delhi Crime Branch had recently sent a notice to Lokesh Sharma and summoned him for questioning on October 22. Gehlot's OSD is appearing before the Delhi Crime Branch for questioning for the first time after the case was registered in the last seven months.
On March 25 this year, on the complaint of Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, the Crime Branch of Delhi Police had registered an FIR against CM's OSD Lokesh Sharma and police officers in the phone tapping case. Lokesh Sharma has challenged it in the Delhi High Court, raising the question of jurisdiction over registering a case in Delhi for the incident in Rajasthan. The Delhi High Court has granted relief to Lokesh Sharma from arrest till January 13. However, the crime branch will be able to interrogate him.
Delhi Crime Branch will inquire about the source of audio related to horse-trading of MLAs in July 2020. The Crime Branch will also ask questions related to phone tapping along with the source of the audio. There will also be questions on who sent the audio and further viral. Gehlot's OSD has been saying till now that he got these audios on social media, so now he will have to give concrete information about them.
There were allegations of phone tapping after the revolt of the Sachin Pilot camp in July last year. The Gehlot camp had made some audiotapes viral alleging horse-trading of MLAs. Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat was accused of bargaining with Congress MLA Bhanwarlal Sharma to bring down the Gehlot government. There was a lot of ruckus in the budget session of the assembly on this issue. The matter was raised in Parliament also. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shanti Dhariwal admitted in the assembly that the Chief Minister's OSD had made the audio viral. BJP has been accusing the government of phone tapping from starting, asking about the source of these viral audios.
