Police to probe calls to AG by Sonia impersonator

Woman asked him to lay low on some high-profile business house cases

The Delhi Police have launched a probe after Attorney General (A-G) Goolam E Vahanvati received hoax calls from an “unidentified woman” pretending to be Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

A complaint has been received by the economic offences wing of the Delhi Police. Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde confirmed that a compliant has been filed. An FIR will be registered after the probe, he added. Investigators said they are conducting the preliminary enquiry.

“As soon as something of public interest comes to light we will inform the media,” a senior police officer said. The officer said that Vahanvati started receiving calls early this month from a woman claiming to be Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

While trying to trace the number, the investigators have zeroed in on a landline number installed at the central Delhi office of a prominent public sector undertaking. They are checking the details. Two more calls are under the scanner and at least one more landline number seems to have been used, the officer added.

The investigators remained tight-lipped over the issue and said: “The matter is under investigation and a case will be registered as soon as possible. We are looking for few leads.”

The woman allegedly asked Vahanvati to lay low in some of the cases involving high profile business houses in the coal scam and also expressed unhappiness over some of the cases handled by him.

A senior police officer said that the calls were made twice, on September 5 and September 11, and the woman also mentioned the coal block allocation scam being heard in the Supreme Court.

The calls were made when Sonia Gandhi was in the US for a medical check-up. She had gone to the US on September 1 after she had to be hospitalised on complaints of chest pain.

The BJP took a dig at the A-G, who has been in the news for wrong reasons of late, including facing a privilege notice on questioning an MP’s right to seek a probe against his alleged Swiss bank account. The A-G had also given conflicting opinions in an income tax matter pending before the public accounts committee.

BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said: “But we would like to ask how many leaders is the A-G talking to about the pending corruption cases.”

Prasad, who also sought to know whether the A-G routinely takes up calls on such cases, recalled that never in the history of independent India, the high office of the A-G had to depose in a corruption case, something Vahanvati had to undergo in the 2G spectrum issue.