‘The law minister had no business calling the meeting’
Harish Salve is one of India’s leading lawyers and a former SolicitorGeneral of India. In this interview with Ridhima Malhotra, he says ‘Coalgate’ should be investigated by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) as the CBI probe already stands compromised.
The CBI was to have given its status report on the “Coalgate” investigation to the Supreme Court. But along the way, the Union law minister Ashwani Kumar and a couple of senior officials, including one from PMO, have seen it. Is this collusion?
The case before the court is about malfunctioning of the Central government. The allegation is that the CAG found that vast resources of coal were given out as political favours rather than in a rational way.
In a situation like this, if the court was satisfied that the government would answer the charge, there was no need to call for an investigation. The court must have got a sense that there is potential for a criminal investigation. The court wants to go beyond what the government has told them on the issue. So the court asked the CBI to investigate the matter.
Here the government is under the scanner. So the CBI discussing this with the government is as absurd as the CBI suggesting that its report in the Taj Corridor case be discussed with Ms Mayawati, or that its report on the allegation that Mulayam Singh’s family has disproportionate assets be discussed with Mulayam Singhji. Mr Kumar has maintained that he did nothing wrong in calling the meeting as his ministry is adviser to various departments.
In saying that he did nothing wrong, he is in splendid isolation. Mr Kumar, G.E. Vahanvati (the attorney general) and Harin Raval (then additional solicitor general) knew that the report was not to be seen by them. That’s why the AG and the ASG told the court that it had not been shared with the government. I want to know on what principle could the law minister demand to see the report that is to be given to the Supreme Court in a sealed cover. Solicitor-general Mohan Parasaran has been quoted as saying that while Mr Kumar was wrong in calling the meeting, the report was only a status report and not an investigation report. Thus, the law minister having seen it doesn’t amount to interference.
The solicitor-general is in error. Mr Kumar had no busi-
ness calling the meeting.
Should Mr Kumar resign?
He has to take responsibility for doing something that is wrong. I think anybody in his position with any self-respect would resign. Mr Vahanvati (the AG) told the Supreme Court that he had neither seen the draft nor the final status report prepared by the CBI. However, former ASG Raval has claimed in a letter to the AG that he (Mr Vahanvati) had indeed perused the report but told the court otherwise. What does this signify?
If you go by Mr Vahanvati’s explanation, it is a serious error of judgment. He shouldn’t have participated in such a meeting.
When Mr Kumar called the meeting, he should have refused to participate, saying it was wrong. It is a bigger error of judgment to have not candidly told the court that “we have had a meeting to discuss the draft report but after that I don’t know if the CBI incorporated any changes”.
If you go by Mr Raval’s allegations, then it’s a very serious matter. The former ASG (who put in his papers) says that Mr Vahanvati was not only a party to the meeting where the report was discussed, he called yet another meeting. Having done all this, Mr Raval says that Mr Vahanvati told the court he doesn’t know what these meetings were about! Mr Raval says he told the court that the report hadn’t been shared with the government only to corroborate what his boss (Mr Vahanvati) had said.
We haven’t heard a denial (from the AG) of Mr Raval’s allegations. If Mr Raval’s allegations are false, it borders on virtually a criminal act and it should be acted upon. But if the allegations are true, it’s a very, very serious matter indeed.
Mr Raval also clearly did something wrong. He claims he said what he did to the court in order to cover up for the AG. He made a mistake in doing so. That’s a clear error of judgment on Mr Raval’s part. He has paid the price. He has resigned. He has been bold enough to go public. If he has made false allegations against the AG, then it’s despicable. But then, somebody has to say that they are false. Where does the Prime Minister fit into all this? A joint secretary from the PMO also met the CBI before the status report was submitted to the Supreme Court. But it is being claimed that the Prime Minister himself was unaware of the development. Do you think the Prime Minister, in his personal capacity, is answerable?
I have a lot of respect for our Prime Minister. I find it very hard to believe that he is personally responsible. But then the question arises: What was his office up to? And there I have a serious problem.
It appears that there is a larger worry in the government. There are different bureaucrats who have been involved in making these allocations. I think it’s a great concern within the government as to where the axe is going to fall.
It could be at the level of the civil service. It could be that the Prime Ministers’ joint secretary acted on his own to try and see how many colleagues of his are named in the status report. But there is now very clear evidence that there is some attempt in the government to try and ensure that the animal is caged. The fact that this meeting was called shows that there is clearly a great worry in the government. How should we evaluate the CBI’s investigation into the coal mines allocation affair so far in the light of what has become known?
This report has to be trashed because it has lost its credibility. According to me, the whole thing has to be investigated afresh by a Special Investigation Team. The CBI has lost its credibility as far as this matter is concerned. I am not convinced that our law minister and the government joint secretaries (one from the department of coal, besides the one from the PMO) met CBI director Ranjit Singh to ensure that his report contains no grammatical flaws. Of course, they were worried about what’s in the report, and whose names are there.
They were worried that the report had something that could embarrass them. And if we believe that they did not make any changes in the report, it means that the report was already put in order. It’s possible that they were happy to find that there was nothing in the report that could harm them and so they made no changes.
When we look at the entire sequence of events, I have a bigger worry. Indeed, a farreaching question is raised: Does the CBI meet the law minister before deciding what stand to take on other matters being investigated by it, for instance the Jagan Mohan Reddy case?
Mr Sinha has told the media that he is a part of the Central government. If CBI is a part of the Centre, then reports have to be binned in all those federal cases in which the CBI has been asked to investigate.