Chennai on Thursday woke to up a ?brand new? political controversy over the CBI raid on DMK leader MK Stalin, son of M Karunanidhi. The twist in the CBI tale was the consequent disapproval by the Centre itself, with prime minister Manmohan Sing leading the pack of dignitaries.

The CBI has constituted a team to probe whether there were any procedural lapses in the raid.

Manmohan Singh, while distancing the government from the CBI action, told reporters in Delhi that it had no role in the development and was upset over it.

?We are all upset at these events. The government had no role in this that I am sure of. We will find out the details. This should not have happened . The timing of the raid is most unfortunate,? Singh said

The CBI on Thursday raided the residence of Stalin, exactly two days after the party pulled out of the UPA. The searches were carried out at 19 places across Tamil Nadu, including at Stalin?s home in Chennai, this morning in a case related to alleged tax evasion of imported cars.

Triggering a political controversy over its timing, Union ministers P Chidambaram and Kamal Nath strongly disapproved of the CBI searches. The DMK said the action was a political vendetta amid reports that the agency concluded its searches after the uproar broke out. Stalin, popularly known as Dalapathi, among his followers, dubbed the CBI raid as a political vendetta and said he would face the case legally. ?I am not aware of the reasons for the raid. We will face the case legally,? 60-year old Stalin, the political heir of Karunanidhi, told reporters in Chennai. There have been reports that Stalin had prevailed over his father in the decision to pull out from the UPA.

Meanwhile, the BJP said the CBI action is an example of blatant misuse of power by the UPA government for its survival and proves that it uses the probe agency to muffle allies who are walking out of the ruling coalition.

However, the CBI defended its action saying it was strictly in accordance with procedures and there was no intention whatsoever to target any particular individual. The CBI came out with a statement explaining why the searches were carried out in a case of imported vehicles registered on Wednesday. It said that a case had been registered under various sections of the IPC, including criminal conspiracy, forgery, cheating and abuse of the official position. It pertains to a com plaint that about 33 vehicles had been imported in Tamil Nadu, and out of these, certain vehicles are believed to have been imported and subsequently sold in violation of import provisions causing a loss of up to R48 crore to the exchequer, the CBI said.

The case has been registered against an importer and a senior intelligence officer of the DRI who allegedly did not take any action even after identification of vehicles at the premises of certain users and unknown others. ?CBI wishes to clarify that the operation was strictly in accordance with procedures and there was no intention whatsoever to target any particular individual,? the statement said. One of the imported cars is being used by Stalin?s son, officials said, adding after further investigation names of beneficiaries of importing the car would be included in the FIR. The CBI said that the FIR was registered on the basis of a ?source information? as the agency had been probing the leads in the case for quite some time.