PM8217;s Bofors poser catches Cong napping

NEW DELHI, OCT 28: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Thursday put the Congress in a spot by asking the party leaders in the Lok Sabh...

NEW DELHI, OCT 28: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Thursday put the Congress in a spot by asking the party leaders in the Lok Sabha why they were shying away from a debate on the Bofors issue. 8220;We are ready for a debate,8221; Vajpayee declared before the Congress could generate enough heat to match its performance yesterday which had culminated in a walkout.

As Vajpayee was making the statement, leader of the Opposition Sonia Gandhi and her deputy, Madhav Rao Scindia, looked on helplessly. Also, there was no attempt to walk out though Mani Shankar Aiyer insisted yet again that Rajiv Gandhi8217;s name should be deleted from the chargesheet. This invited the ire of Speaker GMC Balayogi as he did not want any interruption of Vajpayee8217;s statement.

The Congress plea for deletion of Rajiv8217;s name fell on deaf ears and for once Vajpayee was not in a mood to listen. The PM wondered loudly why the Congress8217; notice for a Lok Sabha discussion on Bofors was withdrawn. None of the Congress MPs, including Aiyer who had initiated the move, had an answer.

The Congress had earlier observed that it was not satisfied by Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley8217;s statement yesterday. Jaitley, said Aiyer, 8220;is not a member of either House of Parliament. And since the issue involves a former Prime Minister, it requires intervention at the level of the PM.8221;

Congress chief whip Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi added that Jaitley was a paid servant of the Government since he was a prosecutor in the Bofors case earlier. Meanwhile, unable to decide on a strategy on the Bofors issue in Parliament, the Congress today stuck to its stand that the Government had erred in putting former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi8217;s name in the chargesheet.

Party spokesperson Kapil Sibal told journalists that the Government was also misleading the country in claiming that it had no powers to delete Rajiv8217;s name from the chargesheet. He gave the example of the Baroda dynamite case in which George Fernandes was an accused, saying that when the Janata Party came to power in 1978, the Government withdrew the case 8220;in public interest and changed circumstances8221;.

The party spokesperson said a later Supreme Court judgement had also upheld the Central Government8217;s powers to suggest to the Public Prosecutor that the case be withdrawn.

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8220;A responsible Government cannot take such a stand of naming a dead person as an accused in a chargesheet. There has been neither any court decision nor a judicial precedent in the matter. The Government is misleading the nation,8221; Sibal said. He said in the past 50 years there has been no court decision in which a dead man has been included as an accused. 8220;That is clearly not the law. It is contrary to law.8221;

If a person has been made an accused, under the Criminal Procedure Code, he has all the rights of an accused. How you can make anyone an accused, who has no right to defend himself?8221; Sibal asked.

Sibal said the prescribed form for chargesheets was state-specific and the chargesheet form for Delhi where the Bofors chargesheet was filed clearly indicated that there was no column for naming accused persons who were dead.