Why was Congress let off the hook, asks Jaitley

NEW DELHI: When the two Houses of Parliament re-assemble after the Raksha Bandhan holiday, the BJP is likely to change tack on the Pathak authority report. There are indications that the NDA will, while agreeing to a full-fledged discussion on the subject, train its guns on the manner in which the Congress had been let off by the panel.

The party was on Tuesday readying a battery of speakers to hammer in the point in the two Houses — a line outlined by BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley on Monday when he ripped the Pathak Authority apart, describing it as “half an inquiry, half a cover-up”, even as he reiterated that the government should have started its inquiry on the Iraqi oil-for-food kickbacks by registering criminal cases against all the beneficiaries named in the Volcker report.

“What the inquiry has not inquired into is quantitatively and qualitatively much more than what was inquired into,” BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley said here adding, “There were two oil coupons, and two beneficiaries. The two beneficiaries — Natwar Singh and the Congress party — have been treated differently.”

Asserting that the government’s decision not to bestow upon the panel the status of a commission of inquiry had tied its hands altogether in procuring crucial documents from abroad, the BJP leader said that the Pathak authority report was based on documents which could conveniently and selectively be brought before it by the investigative agencies.

There he, Mr Jaitley maintained, two crucial points missing in the report. “When the monies reached Switzerland, what was the money-trail in that country? Justice Pathak had no resources to get into the money trail,” he claimed, adding, “The beneficiaries of the oil coupons were known. Two contracts were signed — the first on behalf of Mr Natwar Singh, and the second on behalf of the Congress.

Who signed the contract on behalf of the Congress? Since the Authority had no coercive powers to secure the availability of relevant documents from abroad, what were held back from it were inconvenient documents,” he pointed out.

Without investigating the further trail of money in Switzerland, a statement that there was not a shred of evidence against the Congress appears to be a hasty conclusion, Mr Jaitley argued. “A conscious route was adopted by the UPA government,” the BJP general secretary added, “It was interested only in unearthing half the truth.”

The manner in which the Pathak Authority had gone about its task, Mr Jaitley said, raised a few procedural questions. “No criminal case was registered so as to not to trigger coercive powers of obtaining documents. Mr Chidambaram, while responding to queries on the Authority’s jurisdiction, had said that the power to issue a letter of rogatory to obtain documents as well as the power to issue notices under section 8 (b) could be made available to the panel. No such powers were given,” the former Union minister contended.

The Congress, in that sense, was also an accused. “It therefore tailored the inquiry to its own advantage by denying the Authority these powers,” Mr Jaitley alleged.Procedurally, he added, the committee erred in holding in-camera trial. “The issue related to corruption. Worldover, in democracies, in-camera inquiries have been deprecated. It is unheard of in cases of corruption,” the BJP leader said.