Mumbai:
Sharad Pawar – Veteran politicians and head of their faction of the Nationalist Congress Party today said that he had warned former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his UPA government about the amendment of the Money Laundering Act or the prevention of PMLA and their possibilities of their misconduct under a separate government.
It was ironic that then Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who suggested amendment, was one of the results when the NDA came to power, he said.
He said that while speaking at the launch of the Marathi book “Narkatla Swarg” (heaven inside hell) written by Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut, he said that the law should be amended whenever the power changes again, the law should be amended. The book is a memoir of his time in the jail of Mr. Raut after the arrest by the Enforcement Directorate regarding an alleged money laundering case. He later got bail.
It was Mr. Chidambaram, who proposed an amendment to the PMLA, who placed an accused to prove an accused innocence – unlike another case, when someone is considered innocent, it is considered innocent.
“When I read it (Chidambaram’s proposal), I told (Prime Minister) Manmohan Singh that it is very dangerous and we should not move forward with it … I strongly opposed it, saying that if the government changes, we would have to face the results too. But the advice was not given attention.”
He said, “After changing the government, action was taken against Chidambaram and arrested.” He was misused, “he said,” He said, referring to the arrest of the former Union Minister by the ED in an alleged money laundering case. “
