NEW DELHI: It has become evident that Cabinet Secretary Surendra Singh and Principal Secretary Amar Nath Verma in the PMO with former Prime Minister Rao had deliberately delayed investigation into the Rs 133 Crore NFL urea deal. Immediately after the scandal broke out in March 22, Indrajit Choudhury had briefed both Verma and Singh on the $38 million advance payments made by NFL to M/s Karsan of Turkey. Although Choudhury had briefed the Cabinet Secretary and Principal Secretary to the then Prime Minister on the urea scandal on telephone, no specific instructions were issued by the latter to probe the deal.
The letter No.110/18/C/3/96ESII of March 29, 1996, written by Mr. Verma to Choudhury, makes it evident that the PMO had full knowledge of the NFL Karsan deal where funds from the state-owned company were siphoned off into Swiss bank accounts. As the PMO and the Cabinet Secretary dillydallied for over a month, the CBI probe was recommended by Indrajit Choudhury only on April 24, when the Lok Sabha elections were on, This delay, according to sources, gave enough time for beneficiaries in the deal to receive payments and transfer them into ‘safer tax havens” as well as invest in property within the country and abroad. Apparently, the involvement of erstwhile Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s son P.V. Prabhakar Rao, his associate Sanjeeva Rao and former minister Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav, seems to have been the prime reason for laxity on the part of the PMO and the Cabinet Secretary in ordering the CBI probe much earlier.
But Singh and Verma remained unperturbed, even after Chaudhry followed it up with another letter on April 11 to both of them. In the latest communication, quoting the NFL vigilance chiefs report, Choudhury said “(it is) abundantly clear that the deal was ill-conceived and bad from the point of view of the company (NFL).” Choudhury also reported to PMO and Singh that “the firm (Karsan) is not a renowned firm.” But even after the second communication, neither Verma nor Singh directed the Fertilizers Secretary 10 order a CBI probe immediately.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 12, 1996
