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Journalism of Courage
Readers with long memories would recall that eight long years ago, back in July 1992, as the Harshad Mehta-related banking and securities scam was breaking, V. Krishnamurthy, former chairman of BHEL and SAIL, first vice-chairman of Maruti, the first public sector executive to hold the post of secretary, heavy industry in the Government of India, and serving member of the Planning Commission with the rank of minister of state, was driven out of office, arrested and remanded to custody, and charged with several offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Indian Penal Code. He was pilloried in Parliament, primarily by George Fernandes. The Press, of course, had a ball. With the gullibility which so characterises Indian journalism, and the perfidy to which George’s ministerial colleague Arun Shourie has given the cachet of “investigative journalism”, they swallowed every lie fed to them by the CBI and embellished it with fabrications of their own. India Today put Krishnamurthy on its frontcover and devoted its reams of imported art paper to destroying his name and reputation.
Krishnamurthy was probably the most efficient and effective executive produced by the public sector. He was among those giants who took BHEL to the position where it won 18 successive international tenders against rivals like Siemens, GEC Alsthom and ABB without resort to any price preference. Maruti under Krishnamurthy was an outstanding public sector contrast to that all-time private sector flop show, the Birlas’ Hindustan Motors. As chairman of SAIL, within a year he converted a loss of a crore a day into a profit of a crore a day. It was men like him who made one proud of being an Indian.
That, of course, is no excuse for crookedness. The core reason for the failings of the Indian public sector is that the Supreme Court has held that PSUs are extensions of the “state”, as defined in Article 12 of the Constitution. This means public sector management has to function under the vigilant eye of the CBI and the Central Vigilance Commission, the Comptroller and Auditor General and Parliament’s Committee on Public Sector Undertakings, and put up with the interference in the name of parliamentary accountability of the minister in charge, his cronies and peccadilloes and, above all, of the callow IAS officer who, as joint secretary in charge, rules the roost without knowing a damn thing about running the industry.
For three decades, Krishnamurthy ran this gauntlet with extraordinary success. Inevitably, innuendo and rumour accompanied his climb up the ladder, but the man’s ability and immense hard work could not be denied and aspersions about his integrity fell by the way-side. On his retirement from public service, he set up his own businesses and associated himself with some of his sons’ enterprises. He also responded to requests from Rajiv Gandhi, then Leader of the Opposition, to advise the Congress on the restructuring and re-orientation of the public sector — the early beginnings of the Congress’ transition to economic reforms, of which disinvestment was a component.
That is what ruined him. He was targeted by parties opposed to the Congress. But, worse, by the enemy within. In the same month of February 1992 that India Today carried Harshad Mehta on its cover as the messiah of the get-rich-quick class, Mehta called on Krishnamurthy at the Planning Commission — ironically with much the same suggestions regarding disinvestment as are now the economic orthodoxy of Arun shourie and his government! Krishnamurthy then made the life-destroying mistake of responding positively to Mehta’s request that he be introduced to finance secretary Geethakrishnan. Although Mehtha spent a total of five minutes in the finance secretary’s office, Krishamurthy’s political and establishment enemies, the CBI and investigative journalists, Parliament and the JPC, had got their smoking gun to link Krishnamurthy to Harshad Mehta.
For eight years since his arrest, Krishnamurthy has had only one request — please prosecute me. It is a measure of Indian injustice that the CBI took close on seven years to bring before the court of the special judge, Delhi, the evidence they had gathered against the man. In those seven years, he was isolated within his family and his friends drifted away. His business, of course, withered. His spirit, if not broken, was certainly crushed. To fall in public esteem from being a hero of independent India’s modernisation to a crook with a past is persecution enough while pleading for prosecution.
On July 31, 2000, the special judge discharged Krishnamurthy. He was not acquitted but discharged. The distinction is important to understand. Acquittal comes when, after the evidence is in and the prosecution and defence have called their witnesses, conducted their cross-examination, and had their full say, the judge comes to the conclusion that the charge against the accused has not been proved. Discharge follows when the court concludes that the case against the accused is so thin that it does not even have to go to trial. Krishnamurthy has been discharged, not acquitted.
Of the three charges against him, this is what the special judge has to say: the CBI’s own evidence establishes that Krishnamurthy secured from Sanwa Bank loans totalling Rs. 90 lakh for his firm, India Meters, at a time when he was not a public servant: “not even a single document placed on record by the prosecution,” says the learned judge “connects the accused” to “the commission of offence. I fail to understand,” he adds, “how Harshad S. Mehta can be a member of a conspiracy during a period he even did not know the accused.” Of the second charge, that Krishnamurthy had arranged Mehta’s meeting with the finance secretary, the learned judge says “the meeting had no impact on government policy” and “it cannot be said that by arranging the meeting the accused had obtained any pecuniary advantage.” Regarding Krishnamurthy requesting the Governor, Reserve Bank, to receive Harshad Mehta, the judge says, “this does not involve any criminality on the part of the accused”. On the third charge, thatMehta advanced Rs. 32 lakh to Krishnamurthy to buy out India Meters, the judge says “there was no demand of any bribe”, “by no stretch of imagination” was any “illegal gratification” demanded or given, and the transaction was “transparent”. Hence the conclusion: “No offence as alleged in the chargesheet is made out. File be consigned to record room.”
The CBI have once again been shown up for what they are: a bumbling bunch of key-stone cops. To the long list of the CBI’s joke prosecutions — Bofors, hawala, the pickle king — is now added Krishnamurthy. If Fernandes were a man of honour he would apologise. But, then, he is not a man of honour.
BLURB:
To fall in public esteem from being a hero of India’s modernisation to a crook with a past is persecution enough while pleading for prosecution
