Kapil Sibal pleads for Anil Ambani inside court, calls him corrupt outside

In what exposes the double standards of the Indian National Congress, the senior party leader, and advocate, Kapil Sibal appeared for Anil Ambani before the Supreme Court over the failure of Reliance Communications (Rcom) to pay dues worth Rs. 550 crores to Ericsson. This comes at a time when Congress president Rahul Gandhi has been relentlessly insinuating PM Modi of extending an illegitimate benefit to Anil Ambani in connection with the Rafale deal. While the grand old party has been attacking PM Modi over his alleged association with the entrepreneur, one of its senior leaders is representing him in the Supreme Court. This exposes a clear conflict of interest. It seems that Sibal’s personal position is at loggerheads with the party’s position and especially with the stand taken by Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

What is particularly bizarre is the fact that Anil Ambani is going to appear before the apex court today with Kapil Sibal as one of his lawyers. Last month, the apex court had issued a contempt notice to the Reliance Communications Chairman, Anil Ambani. The notice had been issued on account of the company’s failure to pay dues worth Rs. 550 crores to the Swedish equipment maker, Ericsson. It is important to mention here that Sibal had even pleaded for exempting Anil Ambani’s personal appearance before the Court, however, the said plea was refused. Yesterday, Sibal posted a tweet about the ‘association’ between PM Modi and Anil Ambani in connection with the Rafale deal and today, in a total U-turn, would represent Anil Ambani in the Supreme Court. In his tweet, Kapil Sibal said, “It seems Airbus, French Government, Anil Ambani all knew that the PM will sign an MOU on his visit to France between 9th and 11th April, 2015 . This Government’s lies exposed.”

Thus, it is amusing that only yesterday he attacked Anil Ambani in a bid to allege wrongdoing in the Rafale deal and today he is set to represent him in the Supreme Court. It is clear that there is a conflict of interest concerning Kapil Sibal. As a politician, he is constrained to attack Anil Ambani over the Rafale deal because his party president, Rahul Gandhi has been adamant on trying to corner the Modi government over the Rafale deal even though the Supreme Court dismissed all PILs that demanded a court-monitored probe into the Rafale deal last year. Therefore, even though he has appeared for Anil Ambani in the Supreme Court, Sibal has to speak up against Anil Ambani at the same time outside the court.

It must be kept in mind that this is not for the first time that such clear hypocrisy has come to light. Even in November last year, it was reported that Kapil Sibal had represented Anil Ambani in a case involving the sale of the assets of his company Reliance Infocomm Ltd. to his brother Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio. It is clear that the conflict of interest regarding Kapil Sibal will blunt the relentless attack that the Congress has been trying to mount on the BJP. It will also leave the grand old party red-faced with some hard time explaining its position. Last year, when the report about Sibal representing Anil Ambani had come to light, Manish Tewari, Congress spokesperson had said, “Well, you need to divorce the lawyer from the politics. Whenever we appear in the court we don’t appear as members of the Congress party but as officers of the court.” However, this stance of Congress does not appear prudent and cannot be accepted because when it comes to issues concerning national security, there cannot be two different stands.