Kind Attention to Modi supporters: Five Questions We Have to Ask Before the Birla-Sahara Payoff Case is Buried Forever. From ‘Gujarat CM’ to ‘Gujarat Alkalis and Chemicals’ Some of the documents noting the cash received and payments made were in the handwriting of Anand Saxena, which indicated Rs 7.5 crores paid to the ministry of environment, with the noting of “(Project J)” scribbled next to the entry. The documents also showed various other payments for environmental clearances of Birla projects. The dates of these payments could easily be correlated with the environmental clearances obtained for these projects. The emails recovered from the computer of Shubhendu Amitabh revealed a number of messages which indicated payments to various DRI (Directorate of Revenue Intelligence) officials for the purpose of slowing down/dropping investigations, which the agency was conducting against the under-invoicing of coal exports and other irregularities by the Birla group of companies. Amitabh’s emails also contained one cryptic entry which said “Gujarat CM 25 crores (12 paid rest ?)”. When he was questioned about this entry, he said that ‘Gujarat CM’ meant ‘Gujarat Alkalis and Chemicals’. When asked as to whether there was any other place where he had referred to Gujarat Alkalis and Chemicals as ‘Gujarat CM’, Amitabh could not answer. He also could not produce any document which could indicate any dealing between Gujarat Alkalis and Chemicals and the Birla group for Rs 25 crores. The IT department then prepared a detailed appraisal report in which it concluded that the explanations given by Shubhendu Amitabh about the various payments etc. were not believable and that this matter needs to be further investigated. Unfortunately however, the department did not send the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation for investigation under the Prevention of Corruption Act – even though the payments to DRI officials, the environment ministry and ‘Gujarat CM’ etc prima facie, all appeared to have been made to public servants, which constitute offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The CBI would have been the designated investigating agency for this investigation. It is not surprising that the UPA government of Manmohan Singh – which was in power when the Birla raid and recoveries took place – did not have this matter pursued, because most of the payments mentioned in the diaries were for officials of the UPA government. However, even after coming to power, the Modi government, which obviously was in the know of this IT department investigation, did not pursue the matter. Modi in his election rallies at several times mentioned the “Jayanti tax”, which had to be paid by companies for environmental clearances to then environment minister, Jayanti Natarajan. And any investigation of the recovered papers from Birla would have substantiated that. The reason for Modi’s reluctance to probe the Birla papers can only be attributed to that one entry – of ‘Gujarat CM’ for 25 crores – which any reasonable person would assume referred to him, for he was the ‘Gujarat CM’ at the time the Birla people made their noting. The Sahara smoking gun In November 2014, while the Modi government was in office, the IT department raided the Sahara group of companies. In this raid, Rs 137 crore in cash was recovered from the corporate office, along with several computer spreadsheets and note sheets. These recovered documents also showed payments made to public servants. One particular spreadsheet mentioned in detail the dates, amounts and sources from which a total of Rs 115 crore in cash was received during the year 2013 to 2014, with the transactions being on 40 to 50 different days. On the other side was the disbursement of this cash (Rs 113 crore out of this 115 crore, to be precise) to various people. The disbursement details were consummate and exhaustive as they contained the dates, the amounts, the person who was paid the cash, the place where it was paid as well as the person who went and delivered the cash. In this spreadsheet, the largest recipient with nine entries against his name was ‘Gujarat CM Modi Ji’. As per the entries, he was paid a total of Rs 40 crore in nine instalments. The second biggest recipient was the Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, with Rs 10 crore on two dates. There are also payments of Rs 4 crore to the Chhattisgarh chief minister and a payment of Rs 1 crore to the Delhi chief minister (who was Sheila Dixit at that time), among other people. Other recovered note sheets contain details of payments made in 2010 to various persons. Kalikho Pul’s suicide note, the missing link Shortly after the dismissal of our application, The Wire on February 8, 2017, made public the 60-page suicide note of the late Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Kalikho Pul. Kalikho Pul committed suicide on August 9, 2016, barely three weeks after he was unseated by a judgment of a constitution bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Khehar and Justice Dipak Misra. In his suicide note, which was found with his hanging body, and signed and initialled on every page, Pul details the alleged corruption of various politicians as well of persons closely related to senior members of the judiciary. In particular, the note shows that he is especially anguished at the corruption of the judiciary. He says that prior to the Supreme Court’s judgment in the case, which quashed president’s rule in Arunachal Pradesh and removed him from office, a demand of Rs 49 crore was made for a favourable judgement by Justice Khehar’s younger son Virendra Khehar. He also mentioned that another demand of Rs 37 crores was made by Aditya Mishra, described as the brother of Justice Dipak Misra, for a favourable judgement. This suicide note contained a number of very serious allegations of corruption which obviously needed investigation, for which Pul’s eldest wife, Dangwimsai Pul, had been making requests to the government. However, the note remained uninvestigated and its copies were kept tightly under wraps and not made available to anybody. The then governor of Arunachal Pradesh, J.P. Rajkhowa, himself went on record to say that he had recommended a CBI investigation into the very disturbing charges made in Pul’s suicide note. However, it still remained uninvestigated. And it was only in early February that a copy of this suicide note was obtained and published by The Wire, which published this note in the original Hindi and in an English translation, after redacting the name of the judges mentioned in the note. The unredacted note was thereafter published by the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms (CJAR) in the interest of transparency and to prevent the spread of rumours about the identities of the redacted names. The questions that remain The manner in which the Supreme Court buried the Birla-Sahara diaries investigation and the manner in which the government suppressed the suicide note of Kalikho Pul and did not order any criminal investigation into the matter, raise several disturbing questions: 1.Was Chief Justice J.S. Khehar aware of the Kalikho Pul suicide note and that this note mentioned his name, thus raising allegations about a cash for judgment scam? 2.Was Pul’s suicide note the reason that Chief Justice Khehar transferred the case deliberately to a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra? 3. Was Justice Khehar aware of Justice Arun Mishra’s close ties with the BJP leaders? 4. Did the proximity of Justice Arun Mishra to the BJP – and in particular to some of the people specifically mentioned in the Birla-Sahara diaries as a recipient of black money (such as Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, have a bearing on the decision to finally not order an investigation? 5.Was the Kalikho Pul suicide note used as an instrument by the government to put pressure on the judges hearing the Birla-Sahara case? 6.Did the Modi government decide to ignore Kalikho Pul’s suicide note (despite the fact that it contains serious charges of corruption against Congress leaders and the two senior most judges of the Supreme Court) so long as the judiciary does not order an investigation into the Birla-Sahara payoffs ?
more