Uttarakhand: CBI serves notice to ex-CM Harish Rawat in hospital

Dehradun (Uttarakhand) [India], October 28 (ANI): Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials on Friday served a notice to Harish Rawat, a senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, while he was hospitalised at Jolly Grant Hospital in Dehradun.

In the notice, the CBI has requested Rawat to appear at its headquarters in New Delhi on November 6 to give his voice sample and also for the purpose of answering certain questions related to a bribery, and horse-trading case.

The CBI is investigating a series of conversations that occurred during the government’s overthrow in 2016, and all relevant parties have been summoned for voice samples on November 7.

Expressing his surprise at the summons during his hospitalisation, Rawat took to his social media account on Facebook, posted the notice and questioned its timing, given the circumstances surrounding his health and recovery from a recent road accident.

“Today friends of a very important organisation, CBI, came to Jolly Grant Hospital to inquire about my health, and they served me a notice. I was very surprised. On a day when people are coming to the hospital to inquire about my health, the CBI must have felt that I posed a greater threat to the integrity, unity, security and democracy of the country; perhaps that is why they issued a notice to me in the hospital itself. Wow, CBI,” Rawat said in the post.

Rawat is recovering in the hospital following a road accident on October 24.

On July 17, a special judge in Dehradun ordered Rawat, along with other individuals, to provide their voice samples in relation to a sting operation that emerged in 2016 when nine Congress MLAs rebelled against Rawat’s government. In the video, Rawat can be seen allegedly bargaining with dissident MLAs.