No winner this Win

For a fugitive from Indian law, Washeshwar Nath Win' Chadha displayed a touching faith in the country's redressal system when he protested...

For a fugitive from Indian law, Washeshwar Nath Win8217; Chadha displayed a touching faith in the country8217;s redressal system when he protested to the Press Council about a profile of him that The Indian Express had carried in its February 16 edition. The article was written by the newspaper8217;s Geneva correspondent, Chitra Subramaniam. It doesn8217;t need reiteration here that if it wasn8217;t for Subramaniam8217;s skills as an investigative journalist and her commitment to unearth the truth, Bofors would in all probability have been only a gleam in Win Chadha8217;s eye. As it happened, that gun deal proved to be one of the grossest scandals to have visited post-Independence India and continues to boom ten years after the first shots rang out.

Chadha8217;s own role in it has been conclusively established. Numerous people, including Martin Ardbo and Hans Ekblom, former CEO and former finance director of Bofors, have confirmed his part in facilitating the gun deal. The link has also been established through Swiss bank accounts to the Svenska accounts into which Bofors paid the largest chunk of the known bribes and the Swedish National Audit Bureau announced that secret payments had been made to individuals and entities, including Bofors8217; former agent in India. If any further proof was needed of his complicity in the scam, it was provided by Chadha himself. Some time in 1988, he made a quiet exit from this country, even as the case hotted up. He was never to return, prudently deciding to settle in Dubai instead. It is from his residence in Dubai that he wrote his plaint to the Press Council this March, expressing his outrage over Subramaniam8217;s profile of him. He termed it as malicious and slanderous. His tone seemed to indicate that he was keen to clear his fair name. If this is indeed the case, why does he limit his sense of grievance to a newspaper article? Surely it would make more sense for him to stand trial in an Indian court of law and proclaim his innocence to the world? Since he has not chosen this course of action 8212; for excellent reasons no doubt 8212; his elusive ways indicate guilt rather than innocence.

This leads to a related point in this saga. The Press Council of India is a very respected body and this newspaper is conscious of the invaluable role it plays as the watchdog of Press ethics and professionalism in the country. In fact, when it received Chadha8217;s complaint from the Council, it promptly responded to it with all the seriousness it deserved, including the due submission of the relevant documents and related material in its own defence. This was more than what the complainant did. Chadha did not even bother to contest the newspaper8217;s submission, and the case was duly dismissed. There is a question here that needs to be raised. Should the Press Council have entertained Chadha8217;s complaint in the first place, since he has clearly placed himself outside the purview of the country8217;s legal institutions?