Currency notes were withdrawn from many places: Panel

As the committee of Lok Sabha on Wednesday began its investigation into the cash-for-vote scam, its first tentative finding seemed to undercut Congress's assertion that the entire amount allegedly offered to three BJP MPs as advance of Rs 9 crore bribe to switch their loyalties had been taken out from the State Bank of Indore's New Market, Bhopal, branch.
Sources said that members of the panel who examined the slips on the wads of currency notes displayed by the three BJP MPs -- Ashok Argal, Mahavir Bhagora and Faggan Singh Kulaste -- found them to have been withdrawn from branches of banks in Noida, Faridabad, Gurgaon and other places. Congress leaders, speaking on the condition of anonymity, had emphasised the link of bundles of currency notes to BJP-controlled Madhya Pradesh to suggest that the whole scam had been stage-managed by the BJP to defame the UPA government.
Senior party leaders had even suggested that the money was ferried to the Capital on the eve of the trust vote at the instance of a BJP chief minister.
Significantly, while the panel favoured a comprehensive probe into the allegation which tainted Manmohan Singh government's victory in the July 22 trust vote, its members recognised that it might not be possible for them to quiz either Amar Singh, SP general secretary and the alleged bribe-giver, or Ahmed Patel, political secretary to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, since both were members of Rajya Sabha, without the consent of the Chairman of the Upper House.
The members, who decided to take the help of technical experts to scrutinise the phone records of persons named by the three BJP MPs, noted the view of Kaul and Shakdhar -- experts on parliamentary procedure -- that Lok Sabha can exercise no jurisdiction over the members of the other House without the consent of its Chairman Hamid Ansari.
The first hearing by the panel coincided with V K Malhotra, deputy leader of BJP in Lok Sabha and party's representative on it, saying that he would approach Speaker Somnath Chatterjee to expand the committee to make room for two more representatives from NDA -- BJD's Brajkishore Tripathi and Shiv Sena's Anant Geethe --along with CPI's Gurudas Dasgupta and NCP's Shriniwas Patil.
In another development, while the panel decided to summon CNN-IBN, which collaborated with the three BJP MPs in the sting on the UPA's alleged attempt to bribe them but later decided not to air the contents of the CD, the news channel cited legal opinion to justify its decision.
The committee will meet next on August 4 and the three BJP MPs are likely to be summoned on August 7. The committee's term is coming to an end on August 11 and it may try to give a report by then to coincide with the monsoon session.
As per the complaint, Sanjiv Saxena, identified by the three BJP MPs as Amar Singh's aide, arrived at 4, Ferozeshah Road in a white Gypsy car (DL-2CS-8562), which was noted down by the staff at the residence. He had walked in with the bag which contained Rs 1 crore in 10 bundles of Rs 10 lakh each.