The‘saverao’operation

IT'S not often that a former prime minister gets two non-bailable arrest warrants within three weeks. On October 4, Delhi’s Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Prem Kumar did to P.V. Narasimha Rao exactly what special judge Ajit Bharihoke had done weeks before: only, this time in the St Kitts forgery case. But, strangely, Rao always seemed a step ahead of his fate. Within hours, his lawyers had got a stay on the arrest warrant from the Delhi High Court.

Clearly, no matter how hard the magistracy tried to nail the former premier, it has not been good enough. As an operation unofficially titled ‘save Rao’, the cover-up by official agencies was complete.

 As the week drew to a close, Rao seemed in deep trouble. The non-bailable warrant in the Lakhubhai Pathak case would ensure permanent ignominy, the St Kitts chargesheet was staring him in the face and evidence in the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) payoff case seemed watertight. But suddenly things began to move in Rao’s favour. On September 30, veteran CBI prosecutor Gopal Subramaniam pulled out of the agency’s panel of lawyers when he received a most unusual message from Director Joginder Singh—do not oppose Rao’s bail application in the Lakhubhai case. Coming as it did in the aftermath of Gowda’s September 29 late-night rendezvous with Chief Justice A.M. Ahmadi and for its sheer daring, it was in a class by itself. Subramaniam, who is also on the CBI’s St Kitts panel, made no official comment except to say that "in a patron-client relationship" it would not be fair to involve the media or the public.

Ramakant Khalap, minister of state for law, went one step further. Denying the charge that Rao was being shielded, he told Outlook that the United Front Government had reached a "considered opinion" in not opposing the bail in the Lakhubhai case. And what was the considered opinion? "The CBI would oppose the bail plea if it feels the accused would either destroy evidence or jump bail. This was hardly the apprehension in Mr Rao’s case," Khalap pointed out sagely. Still, did that call for an official message to the counsel not to oppose the bail?

The backup operation was more clinical. Both the Delhi Police and the elite Special Protection Group (SPG) went into appeal before the trial court, saying the Tis Hazari premises were patently unsafe for a personal appearance by Rao. Well-placed Home Ministry sources say that Delhi Police Commissioner Nikhil Kumar was summoned personally to the Prime Minister’s house and told to move such an application. Kumar, who had been appointed during Rao’s tenure, was left with no option. Similarly, SPG chief Shyamal Dutta, responsible for the protection of ex-prime ministers, was told to move court citing non-specific security threats.

On the JMM front, things were even more blatant. One morning in end-September, Joginder Singh changed the entire team of CBI sleuths working on the case. Out went Joint Director Gopalachari, DIG Salim Ali and SP A.K.Sinha. Reason: division within the team on naming Rao as the main accused.

Sinha was then working on accused Shailendra Mahato to get a confessional statement, which would have speeded up the probe and led to interrogations on specific counts admissible in a court of law. Well-placed sources say the only mistake the CBI did was to make the information public. That unhinged the whole exercise: the team was changed and Mahato turned hostile in court, alleging interrogators were "pressuring" him to name Rao.

The CBI top brass was reportedly adamant that Mahato’s confession should not mention Rao. And Sinha took the line that there was no valid reason to omit Rao’s name if the accused was naming him. Then one Karnataka MP, said to be close to the Prime Minister, opposed Sinha’s inclusion in the JMM team. Sinha promptly proceeded on long leave and the buzz now is that he has applied for a transfer from the CBI.

The agency capped its efforts by telling the Delhi High Court last week that it MOITRA needed another two months for submitting a "final" report in the JMM case. Predictably enough, the final report will be presented by a new team of sleuths. The official rationale is that the old team had reached a "dead end". In the St Kitts case, the CBI seemed to have things under control after chargesheeting Rao. But it says the original documents can’t be traced. "There is overwhelming evidence to show up Rao’s role in both the St Kitts and JMM cases," says former CBI joint director N.K. Singh.

Some observers say an interrogation of Rao might yield dividends of a different sort. In an interview to The Indian Express in 1991, Rao had made his position very clear. "When I was in New York, I got a phone call from quarters from where such a phone call would mean a direction to me saying that an officer of the Enforcement Directorate was in New York. He was investigating a case and that he had certain documents which were to be authenticated urgently because they were needed for Parliament purposes. I was told to please see to it that there was no delay. This is what I told the officer who was leaving the town next day."

 The natural question would be who called up Rao, because anyone higher than the external affairs minister in the official protocol list could only be Rajiv Gandhi. So far CBI investigators have stayed clear of tackling this end. The "kidglove treatment" of two key people in the forgery—Satish Sharma and R.K. Dhawan—is being noted with concern. Both are considered ‘close’ to Sonia Gandhi and linking Rajiv Gandhi with St Kitts is seen as a strict no-no.