The Aggarwal aura

What challenge and which mysteries? I am not interested in the assets that the former deputy director of the Enforcement Directorate built up; whet-her he is worth Rs. 100 crore, whether or not his family owns a hotel in Houston,Texas, and so on, are matters for the Central Bureau of Investigation. (It is also a chance for the CBI to prove that it can act truly independently of political interference).

However, what is truly worthy of investigation is the environment that permitted Aggarwal to flourish, the nexus of civil servants and politicians that shielded him almost to the bitter end. How do I know that these allies existed?

Well, consider how Aggarwal left Delhi. Early this month, he put in an application for leave, which, believe it or not, was granted within twenty-four hours. So what is wrong with that?

Let us see, we are now in the second half of the financial year, when there is a certain amount of pressure on all officers to mop up as much revenue as possible. There was no urgent reason cited to justify Aggarwal suddenly taking off; the excuse was a “pilgrimage”. Yet he was allowed to take off for over a month during one of the busiest times of the year. He didn’t bother to leave a forwarding address. And don’tforget the timing: after thumbing his nose at the law for so long, how did he know precisely when to get out of Delhi?

To go back a little, the current case against Aggarwal goes back to the investigations into Abhishek Verma, the VIP scion-turned-businessman, who has now been arrested. Among other things, Verma and Aggarwal supposedly hatched up a scheme to falsely implicate Subhash Barjatya, a jeweller in Delhi, in a hawala scheme. It was when this came to light that Aggarwal took to his heels.

But was it really necessary to wait so long? Complaints about Aggarwal were coming in thick and fast long before his name hit the headlines. When M.K. Bezbaruah was director of the Enforcement Directorate, he wanted Aggarwal removed from that institution as admitted by Aggarwal himself in a letter to the Revenue Secretary. The records show that the director considered Aggarwal to be a “security risk”. Again, Aggarwal’s complaints did not receive a particularly sympathetic reception with the secretary (Revenue)or with the Central Vigilance Commission. Yet he continued in his sensitive and powerful post.

How was this possible? To put it very bluntly: who were Ashok Aggarwal’s protectors? It is obvious that he was shielded by a nexus of politicians and bureaucrats, isn’t it?

Now that Aggarwal is behind bars, everybody is in a rush to disown any connections to him — much as Romesh Sharma became an unmentionable overnight. But, despite all the red herrings being dragged across the tracks, some glimmerings of the truth seem to stand out.

First, Aggarwal’s political connections seem to cross political boundaries. One quip has it that “Aggarwal was protected by some behind the leaders on the Treasury benches and some in front of the leaders of the Opposition!” As I understand, this enigmatic utterance does not refer to any Member of Parliament; it is aimed at those men who exercise power by working in the offices that “serve” those leaders.

Of course, Aggarwal has been around long before the current set ofministers made it to the Treasury bench. The greater part of his career — he belongs to the 1985 batch of the Indian Revenue Service — was in the days before there was any thought of the BJP assuming power. In other words, sections on both sides of the Speaker have reason to fear revelations made by Aggarwal.

Second, politicians are scarcely the only ones to stand by Aggarwal. So by all accounts did influential sections of the bureaucracy. With the errant deputy director behind bars, some of his victims are beginning to speak up. (Though not too loudly!) A common theme running through their stories is the way that other bureaucrats reacted when they tried to complain about Aggarwal’s shake-down tactics.

What it amounted to was, “Pay up and shut up!” Aggarwal, please note, didn’t really have the seniority to explain the power he wielded. Which means that nobody would have advised silence to his victims unless they knew of his supporters in high places. Who were these unnamed allies?

Please don’tthink that the answer to that question shall come easily. No, it will have to be dragged out, inch by painful inch. Even clean politicians are, understandably, reluctant to accept that a trusted civil servant may have questionable dealings on the side. That, however, is the unhappy fact.

Roughly two thousand years ago, Pontius Pilate was faced with the painful option of sentencing an innocent mean, or setting him free and risking civil disorder. Ultimately, he literally washed his hands off the matter. That unhappy precedent has been followed down the centuries by other rulers. All that hand-washing has left us with far too many dirty towels in the cupboard. Isn’t it time to wash them clean?

Letting one’s dirty linen hang out in the open is often referred to as something rather shameful. That is nonsense; if you don’t wash up, you risk the chance of mud coming out on your own, possibly clean, hands. Which is precisely what shall happen if Aggarwal’s former protectors try to escape the wringer bybamboozling their political masters.

It is a simple proposition really; do our politicians want clean hands? If yes, then let the dirty linen hang!