DURING the trial of the accused assassins of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, an Indian. behavior scientist, Satish Chandra, had offered written testimony with documentary evidence on the obstruction by Rajiv Gandhi and subordinates of the Thakkar Commission’s inquiry into the circumstances of the assassination, and the cover up by the Thakkar Commission of this obstruction of its inquiry. Satish Chandra, who was last affiliated with Harvard University and whose scientific research has received the highest possible accolades, had advised Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on the psychological aspects of India’s domestic policies and international relations.

Mr. Chandra made the above offer of testimony in the assassination trial in a cable sent on Dec, 3, 1985, to the defense lawyer, Mr. P.N. Lekhi. In his cable Mr. Chandra said “Am willing to give written testimony in assassination trial with documentary evidence on 1) obstruction of Thakkar Commission inquiry by current Prime Minister and subordinates to hide events and persons involved in assassination; 2) cover up by Thakkar Commission of above obstruction.” Mr. Chandra’s correspondence with the Thakkar Commission, which contains the documentary evidence that he referred to, has been classified by the Commission as “Secret”, Mr. Chandra requested the Commission’s permission to release the correspondence to the press, but the permission was denied. It was testimony based on this classified correspondence with the Thakkar Commission that Mr. Chandra had offered to the court of Judge Mahesh Chandra who was trying the accused assassins.

A few hours after Mr. Chandra sent the above cable offering testimony, he received, very late at night, a hand delivered message from the Indian Embassy in Washington asking him to call a Mr. Iyer of the Embassy “immediately”. Mr. Chandra sent a telegram to the embassy asking for a written communication from them as to the purpose, but received no response from the embassy.

In a letter in the Overseas Times, an Indian newspaper published in Canada, Mr. Chandra said that his offer of the testimony and the message from the Indian embassy in apparent response to it have a bearing on some important questions in that case. During that trial, the defense attorney had claimed that it was Rajiv Gandhi himself who was behind the conspiracy to assassinate Prime Minister Indira Gandhi but the trial judge, Mahesh Chandra, had denied Mr. Leki permission to call a single one of the 10 witnesses he wanted to present on behalf of ‘Satwant Singh an act that Mr. Lekhi called unfair and illegal. The judge had said that the witnesses being called by Mr. Lekhi which included Rajiv Gandhi and his wife and President Zail Singh were being called for extraneous reasons because they could not have anything relevant to the case to offer. In his letter in the Overseas Times, Mr. Chandra pointed out that his testimony with its obvious relevance to the case was clearly stated in his cable. If the message from the Indian embassy concerned an inquiry or other communication from the Court regarding the testimony, then the failure to make the communication in writing, as Mr. Chandra requested, raises serious questions of breach of procedure and due process in the trail. If the message from the Indian embassy was not regarding the testimony, then an important piece of evidence has failed to enter the courts’ considerations, and then it also has a bearing on Mr. Lekhi’s charge of un famines and illegality against the trial judge.

Ina second letter in the Overseas Times, Mr. Chandra referred to the attempts (reported in India Today of March 15, 1986) by the current Prime Minister and subordinates to force the Statesman of Delhi to kill a story about the Thakkar Commission’s demand on R.K. Dhawan the late Prime Minister’s personal assistant who was an eye witness to the assassination to take a lie detector test. In view of such events, Mr. Chandra considers it also possible that the message from the Indian embassy was in service of an attempt to keep him from giving the testimony ~ in which case he would call it obstruction of justice.

The Supreme Court of India is due to hear Satwant Singh’s appeal on September 22.

Satish Chandra

The following is the text of a cable sent to the Chief Justice,

CHIEF JUSTICE SUPREME COURT NEW DELHI, INDIA

RE: CASE PRIME MIN- ISTER’S ASSASSINATION HAVE IMPORTANT EVID- ENCE, PLANNING BRIEF AMICUS CURIAE. KIND- LY ADVISE PROCEDURE/- DATE REQUIREMENTS SATISH CHANDRA, 84 EL- LERY, CAMBRIDGE, MA – 02138, USA.

Article extracted from this publication >>  October 2, 1987