Passport fraud: Somnath Chatterjee orders inquiry

New Delhi: Within minutes of CNN-IBN's exclusive report which exposed MPs for falsifying passport documents, it caught the attention of Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee. He may have lost a little time on Friday, but the Speaker has ordered an inquiry into the shenanigans of Ramakant and Bhalchandra Yadav, MPs who are involved in the fraud.

The Speaker, pained by another instance of MPs bringing disrepute to the House, has now asked his Secretary General PDT Achary to take the matter up with foreign secretary Shyam Saran.

According to sources, there will be no attempt at a cover up, equally, the MPs will get a fair trial. If found guilty, they could well be expelled from the Lok Sabha. But their boss, BSP leader Mayawati doesn't seem too worried, she states that she doesn't know anything about this matter.

The Lok Sabha Speaker is also upset that he was kept in the dark about the cases, even though the Ministry of External Affairs informed his Secretariat three months ago. But with the Lok Sabha in recess now, Chatterjee may find the time for a fact-finding exercise.

In the weeks and months ahead, Ramakant Yadav and Bhal Chandra Yadav will prepare their defence. But Somnath Chatterjee sees a positive side to this sordid saga. He says a clean-up process is underway and that media exposes like this one by CNN-IBN will eventually force MPs to "behave themselves".

This, even as his fellow parliamentarians are reeling from the cash-for-questions sting, which has cost eleven MPs their jobs. Stung by the reduced public tolerance for corrupt and criminal MPs, the speaker has been urged to act in this case as well.

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi of the BJP says, "There should be investigations in to the passport scam, and if there are indeed any lapses action should be taken. No one is above the law."

Even Abani Roy of the RSP reacted to the CNN-IBN report he said, "It is bad luck for the MPs. It is a bad session. I do not know how they dared to do such things."

The MPs will now hope that the winter break will dim the memories of what's been a disastrous session. But the Speaker, a sensitive man, is in no mood to either forgive or forget. And that could mean trouble for the Yadavs.