THE CBI is entitled to decide who it's going to interrogate. Just lodging an FIR doesn't mean everyone named is going to be examined," says a top CBI official connected to the JMM bribery case investigations. Nothing can sum up things better.
First, the Delhi High Court ordered the CBI to file a fresh FIR in the case. The Supreme Court turned down CBI's appeal and upheld the HC order. On June 12, the CBI registered another FIR which names all accused. P.V. Narasimha Rao is the main man.
Says the FIR: "When Rao's government was facing a no-trust move in 1993, a criminal conspiracy was hatched by Rao, V.C. Shukla, R.K. Dhawan, Satish Sharma, Ajit Singh and Lalit Suri.... (They) started horse-trading and bribed JMM MPs with over Rs 3 crore and won over four of them. Suraj Mandal was one of them who defected and joined hands with Rao."
It adds: "About Rs 1.1 crore was handed over to Mandal by Shukla, Dhawan, Sharma, Suri and Bhajan Lal at Delhi's Holiday Inn. Of this, Rs 30 lakh was deposited by Mandal in his Punjab National Bank account. The balance was deposited gradually. The total amount in his account was Rs 52,12,280."
The CBI has been given time till August 2 to complete investigations and lodge a chargesheet. "Till date it has been ignoring the court directive," says petitioner Ravinder Kumar.
Will the CBI interrogate Rao? Opposition leaders say that in all cases registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act, the accused is taken into custody, if he has not already applied for bail. Rao has not sought bail, but the CBI is yet to 'decide' whether to interrogate him. No effort has been made to contact the other accused. But the petitioners see a great legal point in hawala accused S.K. Jain's statement to the CBI that he paid Rs 3 crore to Rao, which was required by Satish Sharma and Chandraswami to organise defections. The dates given by Jain coincide with the entries made in the bank by Suraj Mandal.
