Pawan Kumar Bansal defends decision to resign, says he’s done nothing wrong

New Delhi: A day after Ashwani Kumar, former union law and justice minister, claimed that he was above board on the role that he had played while going through the Central Bureau of Investigations’ (CBI’s) draft report on the coal block allocation probe before being asked to resign by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal also defended his decision to quit from the Union cabinet. The Chandigarh Member of Parliament, whose nephew Vijay Singla was caught while accepting a Rs.90 lakh bribe for organising a cash-for-jobs transfer of a senior railway board official Mahesh Kumar, on Sunday, insisted that he had done no wrong.

"I welcome the CBI probe. I gave a statement right after the incident that I have nothing to do with this. Also, that I have no business relationship with my nephew. The truth will come out," Bansal said. Singla was arrested last Friday while taking the bribe. In his resignation letter, Bansal had maintained that he was not aware that Singla was in contact with Kumar, but he still thought it proper to step down. Meanwhile, the CBI has reportedly secured key leads linking the Railway Protection Force (RPF) to the recruitment scam, a television channel quoted its sources, as saying. According to the information available, the Railway Protection Force Association (RPFA) was used to carry out deals and a hawala route was used for cash dealings. The Home Ministry had recommended banning of RPFA, but the Railway Ministry turned it down, revealed sources. ANI