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Jain Commission interim report silent on conspiracy angle
George Iype in New Delhi
Six years after it began investigating the Rajiv Gandhi murder, the Jain Commission is still in the dark about who conspired to assassinate the late Congress leader on May 21, 1991 at Sriperumbudur.
The one-man Commission -- headed by former Delhi high court chief justice Milap Chand Jain -- will submit a voluminous interim report to the Union home ministry this week.
Though the conspiracy angle was the Jain Commission's principal brief, sources said the interim report -- which is more than a thousand pages long -- is silent on the plot behind the assassination.
The report is said to focus on the threat to Rajiv's life and the security cover
that the government gave him. It also details the roles played by the governments headed by then prime ministers V P Singh and Chandra Shekhar from 1989 to 1991.
Sources said the report, without naming any politicians and bureaucrats, describes that the protective cover provided to Rajiv was ineffective and that was one of the main reasons for his murder.
The report dubs the probe into the assassination by the CBI's Special Investigation Team "incomplete", saying the SIT did not conduct a proper inquiry into many vital areas.
It includes depositions of more than 70 important politicians and bureaucrats that builds up the sequence of events leading to the assassination.
It has an exhaustive section dealing with the activities of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which allegedly masterminded the crime.
The Commission will submit a separate note along with the report to the government, explaining its inability to investigate the conspiracy in the absence of certain vital documents sought by it from the government.
The government has withheld important papers from the Commission on the plea that they were highly sensitive. The information denied to Justice Jain includes the minutes of a Cabinet meeting held on February 10, 1994, under the aegis of then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao.
During the meeting, it is alleged, the Rao Cabinet discussed a proposal to wind up the Commission. Though Rao and his ministerial colleagues have issued contradictory statements on the issue, the
Cabinet papers have not been handed over to the Commission, despite repeated requests.
Congress president Sitaram Kesri has accused Rao of
creating hurdles to obstruct the Commission's investigation and it is unlikely that the interim report will assuage the feelings of Rajiv
loyalists in the Congress.
The United Front government has extend the Jain Commission's term for another six
months. Moreover, in a move to please both Kesri and Sonia Gandhi, the Congress-supported coalition government has promised to provide the Commission with all the necessary documents.
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