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Skeletons in the cupboard

Ritu Sarin

Sixth floor, Lok Nayak Bhavan. It is an address that once used to send shivers down the spines of corporates and politicos, but the very place now from where skeletons are pouring out, exposing the machinations and manipulations within the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

Towards the end of 1998, the Ministry of Finance had effected a purge in the directorate headquarters, transferring out the then director, M.K. Bezbaruah, and ousting the head of its Delhi zone, Ashok Aggarwal.

But the dual action has not prevented a trail of old and apparently muddled investigations from re-surfacing. On January 29, the CBI filed a case of criminal conspiracy against ``unknown'' officers of the Delhi zone for allegedly forging and planting a document in the office of a Delhi-based jeweller, Subhash Barjatya. Later, on February 18, the new director, Indrajit Khanna, discovered that files of two other cases -- involving FERA violations allegedly committed by Zee TV and former Congress party president Sitaram Kesri -- hadgone missing.

The controversy surrounding the three cases may be the tip of the iceberg as the Department of Revenue, it now transpires, had been flooded by complaints and counter-complaints by Bezbaruah and Aggarwal on the handling of several other cases. And as an internal Finance Ministry note reveals, the butt of Bezbaruah's attack against Aggarwal had been his ``mishandling'' of the following three cases:

  • Cases against Chandraswamy: The ministry's note states that Aggarwal had handled the Chandraswamy investigations ``in a most casual/negligent manner'' despite the cases being monitored by the Supreme Court. Aggarwal had dispatched a proposal for mounting surveillance on Chandraswamy to the ED's Special Director through ordinary mail, which had resulted in it being leaked. Besides this, he had not taken ``appropriate'' steps to oppose Chandraswamy's bail application and had given a ``no objection'' to the court for allowing him to travel abroad.

  • Case against Jain TV: Inend-1997, when elections to the Lok Sabha had been announced, Bezbaruah had issued instructions to his officers to be more cautions about politically sensitive cases. Despite this, Aggarwal had issued summons to J.K. Jain, the owner of Jain TV, since some inquiries against TV channels committing suspected FERA violations had been initiated.

    Jain was at that point vying for a ticket from one of the Delhi constituencies and his visit to the ED office had got wide publicity in the Press. He (Aggarwal) had thus failed to take due care in politically sensitive matters and acted with ``extraneous'' factors in mind.

  • Case against Amit Burman: Here too, Aggarwal had showed ``lack of restraint'' and used powers ``arbitrarily'' since he had not followed the inquiry against the member of the Dabur family discreetly. The note states that he had not exhausted other possibilities like issuing summons under Section 33(2) of FERA but directly summoned Burman under Section 40. Eventually, even Burman'sstatement had not been recorded.

    The ministry's note confirms that prior to Aggarwal's ignominious exit from Lok Nayak Bhavan, Bezbaruah had repeatedly asked the Department of Revenue to repatriate him, perceiving him as a ``security risk''. It also acknowledges the fact that Aggarwal had, in turn, levelled serious allegations against Bezbaruah and that the ministry felt there were serious ``inter-personal'' differences between the two.

    A perusal of the sheaf of complaints that Aggarwal had submitted to the Revenue Secretary shows that he had felt that as head of the Delhi zone, he was being stymied while handling several sensitive cases. Aggarwal's letters -- written between July and November 1998 -- deal with the following cases:

  • Case against Sitaram Kesri: In May 1997, Sashi Hoon, the informant in the case, had asked ED officials to come to Toronto to record his statement on the subject of Kesri's foreign bank accounts. But the ED Director, Aggarwal claims, had not given him permissionfor the trip and in February 1998, Hoon was found dead. ``The indecisiveness on part of the Director not only resulted in the loss of a very crucial evidence in the sensitive case but also led to the mysterious death of the informant,'' Aggarwal has alleged.

  • Case against Buta Singh: Aggarwal alleges that there was suspicion that the sons of the former minister had committed serious FERA violations, apparently to the tune of $10 million. The sanction for conducting overseas inquiries was sent to the Director on April but no reply was forthcoming.

    ``Such delays provide ample time to the accused for tampering with evidence...,'' Aggarwal has written.

    `Time will tell who's right'

    When contacted, former ED chief M.K. Bezbaruah said that now that he had left the organisation, he was not in a position to comment on individual FERA cases that had been investigated. ``But all details are with the Finance Ministry and some action has already been initiated by them. Time will tell who was inthe right. I refuse to comment further,'' he commented.

    When confronted with Aggarwal's allegations about interference and not being allowed to pursue trails of cases abroad, Bezbaruah said that since certain complaints had been made by him against officials heading the Delhi Zone, he did not think it fit for their teams to pursue investigations abroad. ``Once I had approached the Finance Ministry, certain allegations were being verified by them. In such a scenario, it did not seem appropriate to send teams abroad.''

    He also said that it would not be appropriate to say that complaints and counter-complaints had been made by him and the former head of the ED's Delhi unit (Ashok Aggarwal) since the officer in question was far junior to him in seniority and rank.

    Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.

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