NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court last week issued show cause notices to the Center and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on a petition which alleges that the Prime Minister, Mr. PV. Narasimha Rao, paid Rs 30 lakh to Suraj Mandal, a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (MM) MP, in July 1993 to secure his vote against the no confidence motion filed against the then minority Congress Government. The petition also money was part of a sum received from S.K. Jian, the a accused in the Jain hawala case. A division bench, comprising Justices Y.K. Sabbarwal and D.K, Jain, ordered that the CBI and the Center show cause as to why investigations were not conducted to ascertain the source of huge amounts received by ‘Suraj Mandal in his savings account in Punjab National Bank.

The bench also served notices to the Center, CBI and Mr. Suraj Mandal to like their replies regarding  the petition before the court by February 29.

Arguing the case for the petitioner, Mr, Ravinder Kumar, president of Rashtriya Mukti Morcha, which claims to be a reputed sociopolitical organization, was senior advocate P.N. Lekhi assisted by Mr. Vijay Chowdhary and Mr, Ravinder Kumar himself. The petition further stated that a no confidence motion was moved against Mr, Rao’s minority government in July, 1993, The Congress at the time had only 250 seats and required 15 additional seats to defeat the motion.

In order to achieve the required number of votes, Mr. Rao bribed certain opposition MPs, including Mr. Suraj Mandal, alleges the petitioner, On July 28, 1993, when votes were cast, the Congress managed to defeat the motion, by one vote, polling 265 votes against the motion. To support its allegation that bribery played a hand in casting of votes in the no confidence motion, the petitioner has pointed out that on August 1, 1993.

Mr. Mandal one of the MPs who went against the party stand and voted against the party deposited Rs 30 lakhs in cash in his savings account at Punjab National Bank in New Delhi’s Nauroji Nagar.

Other opposition ME’s who voted against the motion were Mr, Simon Mirand (JMM), Shalendra Meh to (MM), Shibu Soren (TMM), Govinda Chandra Munda (Janata Dal A) and Gulam Mohammed Khan (Janta Dal A).

The petition goes on to allege the money paid by Mr, Rao came from none other than S.K. Jain, the prime accused in the Hawala case. To support the allegation the petition quotes Jain’s statement given to the CBI on March 11, 1995 “I expected some work in the plant (at Rourkela) to be given to me and in that expectation I agree to pay Rs 3 crore payments were required for the purpose of effecting defections of some MPs in support of Congress Party which was being planned during those days by Satish Sharma and Chandraswami.

These amounts were also from the same channel of Amir bhai which Thad been receive JK. Jain as mentioned above. Singh had been seized by the CBI by then; none of these payments is entered in these diaries.

 

Article extracted from this publication >>  February 28, 1996