Bhim Singh seeks damages from Pathak panel

Jammu and Kashmir legislator and Panthers Party chief Bhim Singh, whose name had figured in the Volcker report on Iraq’s food-for-oil scam

Jammu and Kashmir legislator and Panthers Party chief Bhim Singh, whose name had figured in the Volcker report on Iraq’s food-for-oil scam, has taken exception to the Justice Pathak Inquiry Commission referring him as a ‘‘beneficiary’’ of the scam while the report clearly mentions him as ‘‘a man who did not lift even a drop of oil’’.

Singh has sought damages of $7.3 million (Rs 32 crore appr) from the Commission for ‘‘bracketing him with other beneficiaries mentioned in the Volcker Report’’.

The Commission probing the involvement of Indians, including former foreign minister Natwar Singh’s son, sent a letter to Singh asking him to explain his involvement.

Singh, on the other hand, shot off a letter to the Commission asking why ‘‘he’s mentioned as a beneficiary of the sale of oil coupons or 7.3 million barrels of crude by the Saddam Hussein regime’’ which he had spurned and the fact was recorded by Volcker in his final report.

Claiming that ‘‘calling me as a beneficiary has caused irreparable damage to my name’’, Singh has sought compensation at the rate of one dollar for each barrel of oil he refused to lift. He has given a week’s time to the Commission to respond failing which he would take a legal action.

Singh, in his letter addressed to former Chief Justice of India R S Pathak has said that ‘‘instead of calling him a beneficiary, the Commission should have recorded his gesture of refusing to lift the oil and recommended his name for Bharat Ratna’’.

Singh has in the past won several landmark cases in the Supreme Court. The most famous being the compensation that the Supreme Court ordered the J-K government to pay him after he was beaten up in the legislative assembly.

Story continues below this ad

The Supreme Court asked the Centre to hold the 1996 J-K elections after a protracted spell of President’s Rule following a petition filed by Singh.