The latest in the Bipasha Basu controversy is the claim by one of the two defendants in the trial that he was coerced into making a confession to the police by the then Attorney General, Mr. Benayo Aguotto. In testimony, the former Attorney General claimed that the defendants were in fact pressured into confessing to crimes by the Attorney General and the NDC. The defendants in this case are: Subodh Gupta, alias Bipaska; Ramzioun Kidambwa, alias Chopra and Ishmael Kumar. This is only the second time that the three defendants have had to face a probe by the Office of the Inspector General (OOIG).

The OIG has taken strong action on the basis of the findings in the Bipasha Basu case scandal. Earlier, the OIG had slapped charges on the three suspects and asked them to stand trial for charges of graft, fraud and corruption in government contracts. It later turned out that the charges were incorrect and that the three defendants were innocent. The OIG found that there was no case to answer as the transactions were done through legitimate channels and the Attorney General misinformed the court. In another case, the OIG found that the three defendants were guilty of accepting kickbacks from a company that was handling government projects.

The attorney general’s actions in these two cases are seen as unprecedented and it is likely that other controversial cases will be exposed in the near future. The media has been abuzz with the case. Right Wing Watch has exposed the scam behind the case and the scam that the three defendants ran from their lawyers. They managed to convince the judge to allow them to represent themselves and their lawyers are already busy in preparing their defense in the Bipasha Basu case.