The Enforcement Directorate has claimed in a report that the PFI spent about 120 crores in a month to orchestrate the violent riots in the country after the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act, naming eminent lawyers Kapil Sibal, Indira Jaising and Dushyant Dave also as the beneficiaries of PFI’s funding. The report, as is to be expected, has triggered a massive political row.

The senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal has now issued a clarification claiming that the payments made by PFI were the lawyer fees owed to him in the Hadiya case. He has also questioned the conduct of the media in the entire controversy. He said, “Media has put up a story that ED told them that CAA protests are funded by PFI and part of that funding has come to some advocates, including me. I wish both the media and those who leaked these stories did a bit of homework because they wouldn’t have leaked it otherwise.”

“But I think there is a motive behind it. The motive is very simple and that is to destroy people’s reputation by spreading lies, lies and more lies. This seems to be a part of their propaganda machine, supported by this government and taken over by media ‘bhakts’ on social media,” Sibal added. Sibal did not stop there and went on to threaten the media with defamation suits if they linked his name in the controversy after his clarification or if their posts targeting him on the matter still remained on social media.

Read: Nexus between Congress and Islamists in stoking anti-CAA riots? PFI spent over 120 crores, transferred huge sums to Kapil Sibal and Indira Jaising: Read details

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Sibal said, “If you run this story again and link my name to this, I will consider this defamation and if any media runs this news, if a journalist who had done this story during the day if the tweets remain in their account, I will take them to Court. I will take them to Court as soon as possible and in the Criminal Court as well. It is my warning to them that this should be over by this evening.”

The BJP, however, does not appear to be buying Sibal’s defence. Party spokesman Sambit Patra said on Twitter, “Kapil Sibal says that money received from PFI was for the Hadia case. But wasn’t the Hadia case a case between a husband and wife and how did PFI get involved? He also says that he doesn’t check the source of money received. Is this statement even real, coming from a lawyer?”

Kapil Sibal appears to have a habit of sorts of threatening people to question his dubious or inappropriate conduct. In the past, he had threatened to sue OpIndia as well for raising pertinent questions about his financial dealings. Prior to the Lok Sabha elections of 2019, he had issued a thinly veiled threat to bureaucrats that the Congress party is keeping a close watch on officers showing loyalty to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.