Praful Patel,Vayalar Ravi gave Chatwal Padma push

Before the high-powered awards committee approved his Padma Bhushan,controversial NRI hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal had powerful supporters.....

Before the high-powered awards committee approved his Padma Bhushan,controversial NRI hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal had powerful supporters. Sources in the Home Ministry where four meetings were held to finalize the Padma awards confirm that Chatwals nomination was backed by not one but four written recommendations.

Two of these were from UPA Cabinet Ministers,Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi. The other two came from Americans associated with the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

When contacted,Patel said that Chatwal was,indeed,among the five recommendations he gave to the Government this year. My nominations were for people from all walks of life and I have known Chatwal for years. But of the five,only one (Chatwal) got selected. After all,Ministers just recommend names and it is for members of the awards committee to take the final call.

Vayalar Ravi,who is on tour abroad,could not be contacted.

Home Ministry officials said that since Sant Singh Chatwal fell in the category of NRI nominees,there was not much discussion between members on his name and confirmed that he had been considered for a Padma Shri last year.

CBI officials also confirmed that they received queries from the Intelligence Bureau and the Home Ministry for two consecutive years on the status of the cases booked against him. The Indian Express reported last week how two CBI directors Vijay Shankar and Ashwani Kumar over-ruled advice of their top investigators and called for closure of the cases against him.

From Washington,Chatwal got recommendations from Joseph Crowley,a prominent Democrat member of the India-US caucus and member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Crowley visited India for the wedding of Chatwals son,Vikram,in 2006.

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The second US recommendation came from Dalis Adler,a staff associate at the House Foreign Affairs Committee,who was formerly working for Democrat Gary Ackerman. Ackerman,incidentally,is the one who took Chatwal as his guest to the White House dinner for visiting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The Padma awards committee is headed by the Cabinet Secretary and has Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister and Home Secretary as official members. This year,the non-officials on the panel were Tarun Das,former CII chief; Syeda Hameed,Planning Commission member,playwright Girish Karnad and Rajya Sabha MP Kapila Vatsyayan.