NEW DELHI: Justas the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was about to file a charge sheet exonerating P.V. Narasimha Rao in the St Kitts Forgery case, a senior CBI official has recommended that the former Prime Minister be charge sheeted along with Chandraswami for criminal conspiracy under Section 120 of the Indian Penal Code. DIG Shree Kumar has noted on the files of St Kitts forgery case that “in view of the material on record in the case under investigation, Section 120 and other relevant sections should be applied against P.V. Narasimha Rao.”
The Supreme Court is to take up the St Kitts forgery case along with other cases in which Chandraswami is involved on July 26. The alleged forgery was executed to embarrass the then Prime Minister P. V. Singh by opening a false account in a St Kitts bank we name of his son Ajeya Singh. The remarks of the outgoing official, who was one of the senior officers involved in the probe, have put the investigative agency and its chief K. Vijaya Rama Rao in an awkward position. According to sources, all other officers involved in the investigation had exonerated the former Prime Minister.
Kumar’s argument for charge sheeting Rao for criminal conspiracy is based on four points. The statement of A.P. Nanday, an Enforcement official who was sent to investigate into Ajeya Singh’s alleged account, to the CBI in September 1990. India’s former consul general in New York R.K. Rai’s Statement. (He said that Rao had secretly called him to his hotel room and had asked him to attest the bank documents. He also said that Rao had asked him not to talk about the incident to the then Indian Ambassador Dr. Karan Singh). The copy of the telephone bill of Rao, who was staying in a New York Hotel, which lists the calls made to Adnan Khashoggi’s Olympia Tower s where Chandraswami was staying. The timings of Rai’s visit to Rao’s hotel room and the calls matched.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 31, 1996
