Chennai: Former Chennai Police Commissioner S. George on Friday denied he received any bribe in the gutka scam and claimed his name was dragged in only to prevent him from being elevated as the state police chief.
“It is total falsehood”, he told reporters when asked about the charge that the gutka firm had paid him a bribe for being allowed to carry out the multi-crore trade in the banned tobacco substance.
“Decision was to be taken about the posting of a new DGP. It was June 27, 2017. The whole thing was blown out of proportion and put in the papers to prevent me and TK Rajendran from becoming the DGP. Something has happened. Why should it come on June 27? Who leaked official records? Where were the official documents given to previous DGP? Why was no report submitted to the Chief Secretary? Why was not a report forwarded to Vigilance Commissioner?” asked George at a press conference he called at his residence here.
To a question if he felt targeted, George replied, “100 per cent. This applies to T K Rajendran (incumbent DGP) as well..the whole scam was brought out at a time when either me or Rajendran was about to become the DGP.” He insisted that the “whole thing was blown out (of proportion) and put in the papers to prevent me or Rajendran becoming the DGP.”
“I am not saying there is no gutka scam. There is a scam. There is somebody (behind)... something has happened”, George said.
Seeking to exonerate himself, he said following the death of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in 2016, he wrote to the government seeking probe so as to quell the rumours in social media.
“When I became Commissioner, rumours were going around about the gutka scam and the involvement of senior officials. I was aware that discussions took place at highest levels of government and decisions taken. This can be verified. However no inquiry was ordered then. Subsequently CM Jayalalithaa passed away. At that time I felt it was appropriate for me that some inquiry or investigation has to be ordered to quell the rumours on social media. As the allegations were against the Commisisoner of Police, it would be inappropriate for me to order an inquiry. So I wrote a letter to the government asking for a probe,” he said.
When asked about the allegation that money had been paid to him during Christmas-2015 (when he was heading the prison department), George shot back, “Why should an ex-Commissioner be paid? When you are no longer to be paid? I am a Christian and so if you say Christimas, it becomes credible”.
He said somebody might have misused his name and falsely claimed (from the gutka king) that the money was for the Commissioner while keeping it for themselves. Quoting the CBI's FIR, George said he was not the Chennai Police Commissioner when the gutka company paid the bribes on three specific dates in April, May and June of 2016. He clarified he was not casting aspersions on the officer who led the city police at that time.
On the CBI raids at his premises on Wednesday, he said the sleuths had only taken the sale deed of a housing board plot allotted to him in 1994 and certain lease documents and the insurance policy of his car.
George said even persons of high integrity could be targeted on the basis of irrelevant and inadmissible entries made by unscrupulous persons or criminals on random papers. “That's happening to me, I am experiencing it now”, he said, looking distraught.
