Officer carrying Babri files was not to appear before Liberhan panel

The UP government,however,told the Delhi Police that Sadh was sent to appear before the Commission on May 1 and 2 on behalf of the government,but he carried photocopies,not original files.

In fact,the commission had not asked for any files,said K B Aggarwal,Special Secretary (Home) in the UP Government,in a communication to the Delhi Police on July 6,2000. Also,there was no order to carry any files to Delhi,Aggarwal said.

The letters from the Liberhan Commission and the state government are quoted in an affidavit which TN Mohan,then Deputy Commissioner in the Delhi Police Headquarters,filed in the Delhi High Court in response to a petition of Subhash’s father Bir Bhan Sadh,seeking an impartial inquiry into his son’s death.

In his petition,Bir Bhan questioned the police theory that his son had died in an accident. He alleged that his son,who was carrying secret files,had been murdered and that the files were never found.

“No file/documents were seized or taken or found from the spot or at the hospital. No file in original or its photostat was recovered by the PCR staff,medical doctors or sub-inspector S L Meena” who was the first to visit the spot of the accident.

K B Aggarwal,now the Chief Vigilance Officer in the Container Corporation of India,could not explain the contradictions: one between his letter and the Liberhan Commission’s letter,the other between his statement that Subhash carried only photocopies while now the government claims that he carried the original files. “I don’t remember much about the case now. I was posted in UP for a short period. Bhan was a sincere and hardworking officer. His relatives had met me after his death,” said Aggarwal. According to Aggarwal’s letter,Bhan had also been given another task. He was to meet the government’s “advocate on record” in the Supreme Court and expedite the filing of a special leave petition against a judgment of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court,in a case pertaining to the 1984 anti-Singh riots. Subhash had boarded Kashi-Vishwanath Express in Lucknow on April 30,2000 and just as the train entered New Delhi’s Tilak Bridge station the next morning,he fell down and was seriously injured. He later died in Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital on May 2.

Bhir Bhan’s lawyer Randhir Jain said on basis of letters from the Liberhan Commission and KB Aggarwal,the Delhi Police concluded that there was no conspiracy in the death as he was not in possession of any original documents. “But why did the police not record his statement when he was fit to sign hospital papers before being taken to the operation theatre?” asked Randhir Jain.

He said that when he pointed out the inconsistencies in the police story,the court ordered a re-investigation which was not conducted. “Later,the court transferred the investigation to CID and asked the agency to complete the investigation within three months and file a report,but this was also not done,” added Jain.

On July 10,Chief Minister Mayawati had announced a CBI inquiry into the case of missing documents.