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Kesri Gave Me The Money, Says Sukh Ram

The disgraced Congressman drops a bombshell. But is he just trying to deflect attention?

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Kesri Gave Me The Money, Says Sukh Ram
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IT could not have been a worse week for the Congress. The CBI filed a chargesheet in the St Kitts case naming P.V. Narasimha Rao as one of the main accused; Rao’s plea for anticipatory bail in the Lakhubhai Pathak case was turned down; the Supreme Court pulled up former petroleum minister Satish Sharma for irregular allotments of petrol pumps...and Sukh Ram opened his mouth.

On September 27, the last day of his police remand, Sukh Ram stunned his interrogators: he said the new Congress president, Sitaram Kesri, had supplied the money—Rs 3.61 crore—recovered from his houses in New Delhi and Mandi on August 16. Sukh Ram claimed that Kesri had given him the money as treasurer of the All India Congress Committee.

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Though his statement has been recorded, the CBI is not planning to quiz Kesri "at the moment" because Sukh Ram could not corroborate his accusation. Moreover, sleuths feel that Sukh Ram could have named Kesri just to turn the heat of the investigations from him. For his part, Kesri has flatly denied he was the source.

Though granted bail on September 28 in the case relating to grant of undue favours to the Hyderabad-based telecom firm ARM for purchase of equipment, things are going to be difficult for Sukh Ram. For, investigators have collected what they describe as "damning evidence" against him.

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Interrogators have been unsparing towards him and haven’t been overawed by his "former minister" and current MP status. The interrogation often got rough, with expletives being used freely. At times, Sukh Ram even broke down in tears. It was only at this stage of the interrogation that CBI officers managed to ruffle him enough to find out that the Rs 3.61 crore haul was just the tip of the iceberg.

According to the CBI, Sukh Ram has invested over Rs 20 crore with certain individuals and companies to earn interest on a regular basis. The diaries seized from his residences are said to contain details of the illegal transactions. Entries in one of the diaries, the CBI officials interrogating him say, show that Sukh Ram has invested money in foreign currency, which brings him under the purview of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA). Most of these entries are in Sukh Ram’s own hand. But, for reasons best known to the CBI, he has not yet been booked under FERA. The coded entries show that Sukh Ram gave $400,000 to one "C.K." in four instalments of $100,000 each. The entry reads: "Rs 35 L to C.K... 1$". The investigators have deciphered "35 L" as Rs 35 lakh and "1$" as $100,000.

At the prevailing market rate of the dollar (approximately Rs 35), that works out to Rs 1.4 crore. C.K.—the CBI is not disclosing his identity yet—is reported to have confirmed during interrogation that Sukh Ram gave him the money. The CBI’s conclusion is that Sukh Ram could have been both receiving from and depositing money in foreign countries. "There is no way he can escape now," quipped a confident CBI official.

Similarly, the agency has identified most of the 31 companies—including the controversial Himachal Futuristic Company Limited—and individuals with whom Sukh Ram had invested huge sums, recorded in coded entries in his diaries. Most of them are his businessmen-cronies and have confirmed the transactions.

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The agency has also interrogated three ladies—two of them air hostesses—said to be very close to the former minister. So far no politician has figured in the diary. According to this list, the former telecommunications minister gave a huge amount to a certain Sethi to buy a car. Other entries include abbreviations like KK, AN, etc, which are yet to be deciphered. 

Sukh Ram’s diaries show he had forex transactions, but the CBI has not booked him under FERA so far.

The CBI officials readily admit that so far they have not been able ascertain all the details of Sukh Ram’s rather widely spread money transactions. The full investigations will take more time, specially after the forex transactions came to light. But the diaries have provided the vital leads, and the investigating officials are confident that Sukh Ram, despite his current attitude of non-cooperation, will not be able to escape their dragnet.

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The case has not been without its traces of irony. In the samediary that contains jottings of his illegal transactions, Sukh Ram had also jotted down his lofty ideas about panchayati raj and Mahatma Gandhi. The officers of the CBI are not amused at the rather unorthodox juxtaposition. And they are not likely to be thrown off the scent by his sudden invocation of the new Congress president’s name.

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