India's former BJP chief Laxman convicted of bribery

[Water Car Engineer]

A court in the Indian capital, Delhi, has convicted Bangaru Laxman, former chief of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in a bribery case.

Laxman was secretly videotaped accepting a bribe from reporters posing as arms dealers 11 years ago.

News website Tehelka had taped secret video footage of politicians, army officers and bureaucrats taking money in connection with a fake arms deal.

Laxman and the others said they had been framed.

Sentencing is due to take place on Saturday.

Laxman was taken into custody by officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) after the court order.

In the 2001 video, reporters posing as arms dealers offered Laxman 100,000 rupees ($1,900; £1,170) as a bribe for a military contract. Laxman was seen accepting the bribe.

The website, Tehelka.com, said two of its journalists had posed as businessmen for a fake company, West End International, trying to sell fictitious hand-held thermal imaging devices to the Indian military.

Laxman said he had accepted the money as a donation for the party and handed it over to the party treasurer.

After the video footage was shown on television channels, Laxman - who was BJP president at the time - and then defence minister George Fernandes were forced to resign.

The CBI later charged Laxman under anti-corruption laws.

BBC News - India's former BJP chief Laxman convicted of bribery

 

[Tamizhan]

Convicted for $1900 but Bharat Ratna for millions of dollars (Rajiv Gandhi)

 

[joekrish]

Convicted for $1900 but Bharat Ratna for millions of dollars (Rajiv Gandhi)

No offences mate just because Rajiv gandhi was corrupt and not convicted does not mean Mr. Laxman is innocent, people who are corrupt should pay the price be it congress or BJP.

 

[Tamizhan]

No offences mate just because Rajiv gandhi was corrupt and not convicted does not mean Mr. Laxman is innocent, people who are corrupt should pay the price be it congress or BJP.

Ofcourse everyone corrupt should be convicted.My post was not in defence of BL in any way.

Just the inherent hypocrisy that astounds me.

 

[Screambowl]

if he is proven then jo karna hia karo

 

[T90TankGuy]

i think he is the first politician to be convicted of graft. good

 

[baker]

hats off to tehelka for doing a bold job........... this incident was a game changer in politics.. till that time BJP was in full glory

 

[Zeeshan360]

Just a day earlier BJP stalled the parliament for Bofor's case ..
And the next day Laxman was convicted lolz .

A change of tide in a day and BJP went on back foot

 

[Killswitch]

The conviction took far too long.

 

[ayesha.a]

The conviction took far too long.

It was quite fast by Indian standards. When the story broke out, BJP was in power. Instead of investigating their party chief, they used all the energies of the CBI to investigate tehelka - even fabricating cases of poaching and other absurd cases against them. The CBI only started investigating properly after BJP lost power. After that, investigation, case, conviction etc happened in about six or seven years' time - quite impressive by their usual standards.

I don't know how a party who's president was seen (by the whole nation) laughing and joking while putting bundles of notes into his bag, openly bragging about skewing defence procurements, can claim any moral high ground when it comes to issues of national security or corruption.

Here it is, in case anyone hasn't seen it before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsuUIRiVlsU