The Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, declared that the government as well as the Congress were “commit- ted” and “duty-bound” to ensure the completion of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination probe at the earliest and the conviction of the assassins. Addressing a general body meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party, Rao said “there is no compromise on this and there should be no reservation in anybody’s mind in the matter.” Stating that the Commerce Minister, P. Chidambaram, who himself was an eminent lawyer, was taking personal interest in ensuring early completion of the case, the Prime Minister said that it was a matter of another two or three months now and by December this year the trial was expected to be completed.

Rao’s assertion came close to the heels of the anguish expressed by Mrs. Sonia Gandhi over the slow progress in the Rajiv Gandhi murder.

He said the law of the land and procedures being what they were, all necessary stages and requirements should be completed. Chidambaram was taking utmost care and attending to the case every day, Rao said.

Now all aspects of the case had been looked into and there was no doubt that it would result in the conviction of the assassins, the Prime Minister assured the members.

In an apparent reference to Mrs. Sonia Gandhi’s veiled criticism that the government was deviating from the policies of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, Rao said it was not so.

The programs started by the two great leaders were quantitatively improved, he said and cited the example of the Indira Awas Yojana under which 15 lakh houses had been constructed during the past nine years. Explaining that the purpose of the Jain Commission was to go into the aspect of international conspiracy, if any, the Prime Minister said that some problem was coming up when the commission called for certain sensitive documents which were in the possession of the special court dealing with the care at Madras.

In some cases, Rao said Justice Jain himself was looking into such documents and returning them to the Madras Special Court. Whenever this sort of problem arose, Chidambaram had been told to take a decision, he said.

Notice

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Article extracted from this publication >> September 1, 1995