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A Damp Squib?

Raids on Bhajan Lal's house shed no light on the JMM case

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A Damp Squib?
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THE action had been long awaited. The CBI raids on former Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal and his sons' New Delhi, Haryana and Chandigarh residences last week in connection with the Rs 3.55-crore Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) bribery case did not come as a surprise. But even when newspapers reported the seizure of cash and jewellery worth    Rs 42 lakh from Bhajan Lal's residence, the wily politician from Haryana was not ruffled. Just after the raids, he rather confidently addressed a press conference in Chandigarh, claiming that "each paisa seized by the CBI is accounted for".

But money and jewellery was not what the CBI claims they were looking for. Officials maintain that the seizure was accidental. According to sources, "some evidence had come up during the course of the investigation to indicate that Bhajan Lal and his son Kuldip Bishnoi collected money to bribe the JMM MPs" to save the minority Narasimha Rao government. The CBI conducted raids to corroborate the evidence.

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In simultaneous raids conducted in Hissar, Adampur, Chandigarh and New Delhi's 6, Aurangzeb Road, the CBI seized, among other things, Rs 17 lakh, jewellery worth Rs 25 lakh, several files and cheque books pertaining to bank and property transactions. Fixed deposit receipts (FDRs) were also seized from the former chief minister's Delhi residence. The value of the FDRs is in dispute—Bishnoi claims the FDRs were worth Rs 3 crore, not Rs 5 crore as reported.

However, Bhajan Lal and sons will be hard put to explain the source of the fixed deposit. So far they have been maintaining that Bishnoi is not a public servant and that therefore no case can be made out against him. On the other hand, the CBI has also approached the Income Tax Department to assess the value of the bungalow at 6, Aurangzeb Road, which according to a rough estimate, will be worth "a couple of crores".

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While the worth of jewellery and immovable properties is being assessed, the officials maintain that a separate case of disproportionate assets will be registered only if the seized property is found to be disproportionate to the declared income. They say that the seizure has nothing to do with the bribery case.

What can really land Bhajan Lal and his elder son Chandra Mohan in trouble is not the money but four bottles of whisky seized from his Haryana residence where there is total prohibition. He immediately pinned the blame on his munshi for keeping the bottles but that did not help and he had to approach the court to stay his arrest. 

Bhajan Lal's name figured in the FIR in the JMM case along with former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, former Union ministers V.C. Shukla, Capt Satish Sharma, R.K. Dhawan and Ajit Singh, a Congress Rajya Sabha member. After several rounds of hearing—and a total overhauling of the investigating team—the CBI informed the Delhi high court that the investigations against the four leaders and industrialist Lalit Suri would continue. It filed an additional chargesheet on October 30. In another chargesheet filed on December 9, the CBI also named former Karnataka chief minister Veerappa Moily, Narasimha Rao's nephew V. Rajeshwar Rao and two Karnataka businessmen.

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It had become clear even then that the CBI would search the premises of those named in the FIR and the chargesheets. What is surprising is the delay in the investigations, fuelling speculation that the suspects were being given time to set the record straight.

Bhajan Lal himself admitted to the media that he had been "expecting these raids for quite some time". He produced his income-tax returns to show that the seized money was accounted for. Even a section of CBI officials feel that the accused might have removed incriminating documents. "Nothing can be said. We are going through the seized documents and only after scrutiny we will be in a position to say anything," said a senior official.

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Although the CBI is tightlipped over its future course of action, speculation is rife over the probable names next in line—Shukla, Dhawan, Ajit Singh and Lalit Suri. "We initiated searches only after there was some evidence, and not just to harass someone," said a senior official. 

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