A political vendetta

The decision of the trial court to accede to the government’s instructions to the public prosecutorwas later challenged in the higher courts. Finally, in a landmark 1980 judgment, the Supreme Court, thr-ough a bench comprising Justices O. Chi-nnappa Reddy and V. Krishna Iyer, endorsed the Morarji government’s decision to not proceed with the trial. They said the government was entitled to bring to the public prosecutor’s attention the circumstances which persuaded the government to not proceed with the trial even after it was underway.

The learned judges said it was for the public prosecutor to apply his mind to the reasons advanced by government, but that in doing so he must bear in mind that the government had more sources of information than the public prosecutor to determine what was in the "public interest". They, therefore, suggested that the public prosecutor might abide by the view of the government, of course, after satisfying hi-mself that the reasons given were good in law.

The judgment went on to say that while discretion in language would be desirable, there was nothing inherentlyunsustainable in an under-secretary to the government "directing" the public prosecutor to withdraw the accusations that he had been pressing till four days earlier. After the public prosecutor files his application for the withdrawal of accusations, the judgment said, the court must satisfy itself that the public prosecutor has, in fact, "applied his mind" to the issue before acting on the government’s ch-ange of view.

That is where the law stands today. The best authority to explain this to the Prime Minister is his own law minister, Ram Jethmalani, who appeared as George Fernandes’ advocate in this case in the Supreme Court. If the Prime Mi-nister wants a second opinion, he can get it from lawyer Sushma Swaraj, who assisted Jethmalani in this case.

There are plenty of reasons for a just and fair government to withdraw Rajiv Gandhi’s name from the list of accused. The most important of these is that no-where in the chargesheet has it been suggested that Rajiv Gandhi was a beneficiary of whatever sumswere paid into whatever account for whatever reason by Bofors AB. Joginder Singh, the CBI director who received the Quattrocchi papers from the Swiss, has repeatedly affirmed that the CBI has no papers to indicate that Rajiv Gandhi was a beneficiary.

True, the trail is long and goes from Switzerland through the Chan-nel islands to a bewildering variety of destinations. The CBI has applied for letters rogatory to chase all these clues. What they will turn up is anybody’s guess: but anybody’s guess cannot be evidence for pu-tting down as an accused a man who is "not sent up for trial" and, therefore, cannot defend himself during the trial.

Quattrocchi, Ardbo and Bhatnagar, the accused who are being sent up for trial (column 1), can explain during the trial their stand on the documents filed by the CBI and the st-atements of witnesses for the prosecution. Th-ey can also call their own witnesses. Accused "not sent up for trial" (column 2) can say no-thing in their own behalf because while they are accused,they cannot be tried. The law says a dead person cannot be tried.

Vajpayee has seized this provision of the law to damn his predecessor as an accused knowing that this stain will remain at least as long as the trial drags on. And everyone, even Vajpayee, knows that on the basis of a half-baked investigation, which has turned up no more than the rudiments of suspicion after a decade of the CBI’s labours, the trial itself will go on and on, probably forever, until the Lord transfers all the accused from column 1 to column 2.

If Vajpayee as a cabinet minister circa 1977 could spring with such alacrity to the defence of an accused who is now his cabinet colleague, why is he dragging his feet on Rajiv Gandhi and parroting the blatant untruth that this is a matter only between the CBI and the courts? If, in 1977, Vajpayee believed that the spotless reputation of the infamous George Ferna-ndes could be salvaged only by withdrawing charges rather than letting the "law take its course", then what other than thegovernment’s political vendetta against the Congress accounts for Vajpayee not acting on behalf of an accused who is no longer alive, who therefore is not being sent up for trial, and against whom there is not an iota of evidence that he was a beneficiary?

In the 18 months since Vajpayee became prime minister, there have been unrefuted newspaper reports (all of which I cited in Parliament, with dates and sources for easy reference) of senior legal counsel of the CBI, the CBI desk officer in charge of the case, and Joginder Singh’s successor as Director, CBI having brought on record their conviction that evidence does not exist to identify Rajiv Gandhi as an accused. Yet, Vajpayee plays the injured innocent. Go to court, he says. Which court? The dead have nowhere to go.

On August 16, 1999, Vajpayee anno-unced at a press conference in Delhi that his government would file charges only after receiving the last of the documents. Why did he change his mind on October 22, 1999, the day the chargesheet wasfiled? Because, on that date, Rajiv Gandhi’s wi-dow became Leader of the Opposition. The same day Vajpayee moved in to bl-acken the name of her husband. If this is not vendetta, then Vajpayee clearly does not know the meaning of the word. Perhaps because it is Italian in origin.

Aiyar is a Congress MP but these views are his own