31 May 2002
PROTECTING CORUPTION, YASHWANT
SINHA WAY
From Jal Khambata
NEW
DELHI: When you tap phones of Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, you
have to pay the price. Central Economic Intelligence Bureau
Director-General A K Pande, who retired on Friday, has learnt it hard
way.
He was first tried to be framed up for corruption in
funding of his son's higher education in the United States and
Yashwant Sinha on Friday moved swiftly to close the case against a
revenue official who had actively participate to fix him up.
Pande
was exonerated by no less than the Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC)
N Vittal and he was empaneled for the post-retirement job of
Settlement Commissioner in Calcutta but Sinha prevailed upon the
Cabinet Committee on Appointments (CCA) to let the post go to D Raja
who is to retire next month as a member, Excise, in the Central Board
of Excise and Customs.
In what a Delhi tabloid dubs as
"customising corruption" to portray how "protection
breeds corruption and corruption finds protection", Sinha has
helped the official accused of the frame-up not once but twice.
Earlier, Sinha had dropped another case of a Rs 4.5-crore fraud in
collusion with a Mumbai-based export firm, Select Impex Limited (SIL)
in export of gold-strapped quartz watches.
The official,
Sandeep Prakash, who is at present Deputy Director, Service Tax, had
a godfather in K L Verma, Chairman of the Central Board of Excise and
Customs (CBEC), who came to his rescue in both the instances. Both
Verma and Pande are officials of the Indian Revenue Services (IRS)
belonging to the same batch and had rivalry running between them for
years.
On March 28, 2001, the CVC recommended "major
penalty proceedings" against Sandeep Prakash in the Rs 5-crore
fraud on the basis of investigations by Pande and CBI.
But
Verma delayed action by referring the case to Joint Commissioner
(Vigilance) P K Dash for comments and let the file remain pending
until he got the Finance Minister's approval to drop the case and
wrote back to the CVC early this month that the Minister, in his
capacity as the disciplinary authority, has decided to drop the
proceedings against Sandeep Prakash.
The sword of
misrepresentations to falsely implicate Pande in the other case,
however, still hanged on the head of Sandeep Prakash since Pande had
shot out a lengthy letter to the Revenue Department on April 4
narrating how he was sought to be humiliated and attempts were made
to throw his reputation in the mud just because he had investigated
against this official.
Verma retired on May 30 but just a day
earlier he shot off a 3-page note to the Union Revenue Secretary,
recommending that "it would be more appropriate that FM's
approval is taken to close the matter and for not proceeding against
Shri Sandeep Prakash." And, the Finance Minister has now
concurred with Verma to let Sandeep Prakash again go scot free.
The
first case against Sandeep Prakash was cheating of the Government to
the tune of Rs 4.5 crores as export credit to the Mumbai firm for
exporting watches worth Rs 22.5 crore. Investigations proved that the
export was only on paper and Pande got Sandeep Prakash transferred
out of Directorate, Revenue Intelligence, in July 1999 in view of his
involvement in this serious fraud.
Pande was, however, in a
fix last year when a bombshell exploded accusing him of taking money
from a company under his investigation for customs fraud for his
son's education abroad and that too with all sorts of proofs
including the cheques by which the money was received in his son's
account. Details of the son's passbook were flung at him to prove
source of all receipts in his account.
Undeterred, Pande,
however, chose to carry out his investigation and ultimately
established hand of Sandeep Prakash in fabricating the case against
him but that itself is an interesting story.
Pande's son
Aditya then working with Larsen & Toubro wanted to go to the US
for post graduation. He told his father that names of the trusts who
give grants and loans for such studies can be obtained from Charities
Commissioner and so Pande simply A K Dhar, then Joint Director,
Revenue Intelligence, in Mumbai to obtain the names and pass them on
to his son. Dhar also suggested the name of one Jan Seva Trust.
As
Pande has written in one of hs confidential letters to the Additional
Revenue Secretary Anupam Dasgupta on April 4, 2002, he had asked Dhar
"whether the Trust was good and clean, thereby meaning whether
it had come to the adverse notice of the Department in any manner"
and "Dhar had confirmed that the Trust was good and
clean."
According to Pande, he had no reason to distrust
a senior officer "who are asked to conduct similar verifications
about individuals and firms frequently during the course of their
duties." That was the end of the matter as Pande did not talk to
anybody in the Trust but his son applied and got the funds.
Once
the bombshell of corruption exploded, Pande carried out his own
inquiries and found out that Sandeep Prakash who was then working as
a deputy director under Dhar came to know about his request and it
was he who suggested to Dhar the name of Jan Seva Trust. Dhar had not
mentioned this fact while recommending the Trust.
Pande was at
that time overseeing a vigilance investigation personally against
Sandeep Prakash in the export fraud. Sandeep quietly approached Jan
Seva Trust, got it money through cheques and persuaded it to issue a
cheque of Rs one lakh in the name of Pande's son in response to his
application for grant for foreign studies.
Sandeep kept copies
of the cheques given to the Trust. He later obtained the details of
the bank of Pande's son where the Trust cheque was credited and
obtained the details of the transactions in the account to make out a
case against Pande with what appeared like all the hard evidence
needed to book one under the anti-corruption law.
Pande's
trump card proved to be a letter he secured from B L Verma of the Jan
Seva Trust exposing how Sandeep had arranged for the money to the
Trust to issue a cheque to Pande's son and thus damage credibility of
Pande overseeing the vigilance inquiry against him. END