Enough evidence to charge Rao in St Kitts case: CBI

CBI counsel U S Prasad contended that it was wrong to suggest that Rao (the then external affairs minister) had without any knowledge about the alleged conspiracy, directed the Indian consulate in New York to attest the documents relating to reported St Kitts account of former premier V P Singh’s son in a routine manner on instruction from the prime minister’s office.

Prasad said Rao was aware about the procurement of the personal passport of V P Singh and his son, Ajeya Singh, by the then minister of state for external affairs K K Tewary and added that the ministry officials had shown the file relating to it to Rao also.

Quoting statements of witnesses, mostly the officials of external affairs ministry, Indian consulate in New York and Indian High commission, Port of Spain, Prasad said Rao had the knowledge of procurement of the “forged documents” from St Kitts.

To a specific query by the judge whether CBI had made an effort to find out the existence of Ajeya Singh’s bank account with the First Trust Corporation Ltd (FTCL) in St Kitts, Prasad said no such account was opened by Singh as per the inquiry made through four letters rogatory to US and one each to Canada and St Kitts.

To another query as to what prompted CBI to conclude that the account did not exist and the documents relating to it were forged, Prasad cited several reasons to presume this.

He said that both V P Singh and Ajeya Singh had denied ever opening any account in St Kitts and the handwriting experts verified that their signature on the documents, procured by Enforcement deputy director A P Nandy from FTCL managing director Goege McLean, were forged.

Prasad told the court that Anne Salvesen, McLean’s private secretary, and Byron, a director of FTCL had also denied of Ajeya Singh having an account in their bank.

He said more importantly, during the period (September 1986) when the alleged account was shown to have been opened by Ajeya Singh, both, his and his father’s passports were with the passport department.

The calculation of interest in the bank documents was incorrect and did not tally, Prasad said and added that the money was shown to have been deposited and withdrawn on the same day. The bank had also been shown to function on holidays, he added.

Prasad, however, told the court that there were no evidence of the involvement of R K Dhawan, the then officer of special duty in PMO and Capt Satish Sharma in the case.

Prasad said the court should take into account the “intention of the accused behind the alleged overt and covert acts as entire machinery was set in motion at the instance of a private individual, Chandraswami and Rao, being a minister, directed his officials to act in a secret manner.”

Earlier, R K Anand, the counsel for Rao reiterated that his client had only directed Indian Consulate General at New York to attest the documents in routine manner under instruction from PMO, without knowing that they were forged.

There is nothing to suggest that Rao had ordered the procurement of V P Singh’s and Ajeya Singh’s passports.

He said the PMO was monitoring the collection of documents by Nandy and Rao was in New York only in connection with a UN meeting when he received a call from PMO regarding attestation of the documents.

Anand said many presumptions could be drawn from the evidence placed before the court by CBI in the absence of its effort to find out the veracity of the alleged account.

He said that the Enforcement Directorate initiated action against V P Singh and Ajeya Singh on the basis of newspaper reports, published in August 1989, and not on the basis of the documents procured by Nandy in October, the same year.

He said CBI which had not mentioned Rao’s name in the FIR in May 1990, brought his name in the charge-sheet and also replaced Section 195 of IPC with Section 193 to make the case stronger, though there was no change in the situation in between.

Meanwhile, in a considered reaction, the Congress party establishment today cautiously disapproved Narasimha Rao’s legal defence in the St Kitts case involving late Rajiv Gandhi’s name.

An AICC press statement, authenticated by Congress president’s political secretary Tariq Anwar, described attempts to “shift responsibility” onto Rajiv as “being against all civilised conduct”.

The statement said the move was “motivated by a most reprehensible desire to denigrate a dead leader of the country” and had to be strongly condemned.

“The Congress party is deeply shocked by this action and would defeat any effort to defame our beloved leader posthumously,” it added. The statement, which betrayed Congress president’s need to gratify the 10 Jana Path and Rajiv Gandhi loyalists in the current power struggle within the party, was issued in the context of Rao’s legal defence presented in the Special Judge’s court yesterday that he had attested those papers at the behest of late Rajiv Gandhi.