Cong stain spreads: Natwar OSD, now envoy, flew to Jordan same day as son

And that’s not the only Congress link.

An investigation by The Indian Express has revealed that a senior Congress office-bearer, Aneil Mathrani, who was secretary of the party’s foreign cell—Natwar Singh was its chairman then—flew to Amman, Jordan on January 18, 2001, the same day that Natwar’s son Jagat Singh went there.

Records show that both flew Royal Jordan Airlines. Mathrani went back to Jordan in April 2001.

The dates of these Jordan trips by Mathrani—who was made Officer on Special Duty in Natwar’s Ministry when the UPA took charge and is now Indian Ambassador to Croatia—are within weeks of what the Volcker report calls “illegal surcharge” payments made in the Jordan National Bank.

Totalling $748,540 (approx. Rs 3.22 crore), these payments were made by Sehgal and Hamdan Export on behalf of Masefield, the Swiss firm that bought Iraqi oil for which rights had been allotted to Natwar and the Congress party.

That Mathrani flew to Jordan when he was a Congress office-bearer isn’t the only embarrassment to the party which today said it would issue a legal notice to the United Nations and to the Volcker committee.

The Volcker report clearly identifies the fact that the rights (to lift oil) allotted to both Natwar and the Congress party were the very ones against which Hamdan Export made the “illegal” payments. These payments are supposed to have reached the Saddam Hussein regime.

•Consider these:

• Sehgal, who went to Amman in February, 2001, deposited $60,000 in Jordan National Bank on March 13 and $438,518 in the name of Hamdan Exports on May 27, 2001. Both payments were against contract number M/09/54.

• This contract number (for 4 million barrels) is the same that was allotted to Natwar Singh. And Sehgal paid $498,973 as ‘‘surcharge’’ for 1.9 million barrels of oil lifted by Masefield.

Masefield lifted an extra 1 million barrels using rights allocated to the Congress party (for another 4 million barrels).

• Sehgal’s Hamdan Exports deposited $250,022 against contract number M/10/57, the same contract number allotted to the Congress Party.

When contacted by The Indian Express today, Mathrani said he did not wish to discuss his “relationship” with Natwar Singh. While he confirmed his travel to Jordan, he said it was en route to Iraq as part of a Congress delegation.

“In January 2001, I went to Iraq as member of delegation led by Natwar Singh and in April, I went again as a member of delegation to attend Saddam Hussein’s birthday celebration,’’ he said.

When asked that records show Jagat Singh, too, went to Jordan the same day, Mathrani said: ‘‘All I can tell you is that Natwar Singh, P Shiv Shankar, A R Antulay and myself comprised the delegation.’’

Mathrani said that he has no knowledge of the oil rights allocated to the Congress Party. ‘‘I did not look into these ludicrous things … I am not aware of anything,’’ he said.

However, soon after speaking to The Indian Express, Mathrani went to Natwar Singh’s Teen Murti Lane residence.