Jaipur: On the complaint of Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat in Narendra Modi’s cabinet, the Delhi Police has filed an FIR against Lokesh Sharma, the officer on special duty (OSD) for Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot in connection with Shekhawat’s phone being tapped.
The matter pertains to a leaked audio clip that went viral last year during the showdown between Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot, in which Shekhawat was allegedly conversing with two MLAs from the Pilot camp and a Bharatiya Janata Party leader named Sanjay Jain on their plan to topple the ruling Congress government in the state.
Following this, the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Rajasthan Police had slapped sedition charges against Shekhawat and others in the audio. However, the charges were later withdrawn and the case was transferred to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB).
Sharma has been booked under sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) and 120 B (punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, and relevant sections of the Indian Telegraph Act and Information Technology Act.
This move comes after a year of efforts by the opposition BJP in Rajasthan to register an FIR against Sharma and other senior Congress leaders in Jaipur. The BJP state unit had tried to file a complaint against Sharma last year but did not succeed.
According to an Indian Express report, in July last year, the BJP spokesperson in Rajasthan Laxmikant Bhardwaj had attempted to file a complaint at Jaipur’s Ashok Nagar police station against Sharma and senior Congress leaders Randeep Singh Surjewala, Govind Singh Dotasra and Mahesh Joshi.
When an FIR could not be filed, he even moved the court demanding an FIR be lodged against them. He stated that Sharma, as part of a ‘conspiracy’ conceived at the chief minister’s office, had circulated fake audios among the media.