'The PM Is Weak ... Pathak Used To Hang Around Me'

Sleeping over the issue after his outburst in animpromptu press-conference has also apparently not calmed him down, for NatwarSingh, when confronted by Karan Thapar in an interview for CNN-IBN went on tosay, "It gives me no pleasure to say that he (Manmohan Singh) is a weak PM,unable to stand by his colleagues. He has no backbone. ... I have worked withhim for 40 years... he is indecisive ... he knew nothing of foreign affairs...and I helped him ... and now when I am indifficulty he does not have the courage or camaraderie to say something in myfavour." 

He prefaced the above by saying: "I have served the Congress for 22years, before that 31 years (I was) in the foreign service. I have been letdown. I am deeply disappointed. I am bitter, I'm hurt that the party has decidedto do this to me." 

He also alleged that two ministers in the UPAGovernment had hatched a conspiracy against him. When asked whether he washinting at Union Ministers P Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal, he said, "It isfor you to draw your own conclusion."

He went on to charge these two unnamed ministersfor having selected lawyers who had prejudice against him to assist the PathakInquiry Authority. 

That was not all, he even did not spare JusticePathak who, he said, used to "hang around" him to get an entry intothe International Court of Justice in The Hague. The Pathak report is"...by a gentleman who was hanging around me to get into the worldcourt."

Perhaps Natwar Singh does not recognise that thiswould actually strengthen the charge that the report is a cover-up and is soft on him and gives him a certificate of not being a financial beneficiary.It could well be argued that the report was designed to offer him an honourableexit which he has misread as persecution.

It has been widely reported that the Enforcement Directorate is baffled by thePathak Authority not taking note of the documents of Serious Fraud Office (SFO)London which gave detail of the money trail.  Sources in the agency claimPathak Authority was handed over voluminous documents procured  from theUnited Kingom's SFO giving details about the flow of money and its trail.

However, there was no mention about the SFO documents in the 110-page Pathakauthority report and it remained silent over the investigations carried out bythe ED. The SFO documents are understood to have given details about the moneyflow from the company floated by Sehgal and London-based NRI Khanna to otherpeople in India. The sources say the Pathak Authority was also silent on thestatement given by Sehgal before the Enforcement Directorate alleging that hedid the entire lifting of oil at the behest of "somebody".

Meanwhile, in the Karan Thapar interview, Natwarreiterated that while signatures on the three controversial letters: 

About the letter given to Andaleeb Sehgal:"The signatures are mine but the content is not mine. I have no idea whowrote the letter ... the language is not mine the letters are a cut and pastejob." But he refused to speculate on who had "concocted" theletter, and said: "No originals were shown to me (by the PathakAuthority)."

As for the letters given to Jagat Singh, NatwarSingh said: "I may have written those letters." But insisted thatthere there was a "deliberate attempt" by the Pathak Authority not toinclude affidavits filed by him, his son Jagat and Andaleeb Sehgal:"Andaleeb's affidavit is not mentioned, my affidavit is not mentioned, myson's affidavit is not mentioned (in the Pathak report)," he said.

Later, his son Jagat Singh read out a statement by Natwar Singh to theassembled journalists at his residence:

"I would like to point out that the Justice Pathak inquiry committee[Authority] has in its own convoluted way totally discredited the basis of PaulVolcker's allegations. 

"I place before the people of India what the Permanent Mission of India(PMI) in the UN reported in the final report in the oil-for-food programmeinvestigation on the authenticity and veracity of the Volcker report to theManmohan Singh Government," he said.

The statement went on to quote from the report by the Minister in PMI, HarshVardhan Shringla, which said "The IICs were headed by Paul Volcker, formerChairman of the US Federal Reserve, whose inclination was to discredit theopponents of US policy ... No evidence has been cited and no documentation givenon most of the allegations made .... due process was not observed because noneof the non-commercial entities were asked through PMI to respond to theallegations..

"It may be noted that the communication is of October 30, 2005 andtherefore a vital input which was available to the Manmohan Singh Government andto Justice R S Pathak, which they seem to have deliberately ignored ....

"The malicious campaign launched in the last few months against me hasquestioned my honour, integrity and political and diplomatic credentialsacquired over a lifetime. I wonder why this vital document has been deliberatelyignored.