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August 1, 1998

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E-Mail this column to a friend Rajiv Shukla

4 Cabinet ministers demanded action against Karunanidhi, got ATR changed

Seven years of investigations, and what have we got?

Justice M C Jain's report into the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, now with the Union government.

And not much of a report, either, for it does not arrive at any conclusion, preferring to pave the way for yet another commission, while discreetly angling the needle of suspicion towards certain people.

This comes contrary to popular expectation, which held that since Justice Jain took so long over his sittings, he would come up with something concrete, precise, definite. Justice Jain does no such thing, however, contenting himself with a vague report that does not hold any one person or body responsible for the assassination.

The judge has, however, achieved certain things -- most notable being the clean chit he has given former prime ministers V P Singh, Chandra Shekhar and P V Narasimha Rao.

Given the inconclusive nature of Justice Jain's report, the government has been left with no option but to constitute another probe committee, this one comprising officials of CBI, RAW, IB, Directorate of Enforcement, home ministry and the ministry of external affairs, to further investigate the matter.

The lord alone knows how long this committee will take, or what it will eventually come up with, five, maybe ten years down the line? Will it name the persons responsible for Rajiv's assassination? More to the point, that many years down the line, will any one of us care, any more?

Meanwhile, buzz within the corridors of power is that the Vajpayee government was forced to change the Action Taken Report on the Jain report under pressure from four Cabinet ministers, who were adamant in their demand that action be taken against Muthuvel Karunanidhi, Subramanian Swamy and Chandra Swami.

Officials of the home ministry had prepared an ATR, on the basis of the Jain report and the findings of the Special Investigative Team of the CBI, and submitted it to the Cabinet for approval about a fortnight ago.

In this, no action had been recommended against either Karunanidhi or Swamy, while in the case of Chandra Swami, the ATR had recommended a further probe into his possible involvement in the assassination.

When the Cabinet met to consider the ATR, four ministers -- Thambi Durai, P Rangarajan Kumaramangalam, Vazhappadi Ramamurthi and Ram Jethmalani -- lost their cool, and alleged that the BJP segment of the government was trying to protect Karunanidhi.

Jethmalani further demanded action against his bete noire, Subramanian Swamy, asking that he be arrested immediately.

While not as vocal, other ministers asked why the CBI had not questioned Karunanidhi, and said that the ATR was tailored to hide this mistake, and to protect the investigating body.

Thus, for one reason or the other, most ministers were adamant that action be taken against the Tamil Nadu chief minister. Home Minister L K Advani tried his best to explain the thinking behind the ATR, but none of his Cabinet colleagues were in a mood to listen to him.

Advani did try pointing out that the Jain report had not recommended action against Karunanidhi, that even if there was the feeling that the TN chief minister had sympathised with the LTTE and possibly even encouraged its activities in Tamil Nadu, there was no link to any involvement with the assassination.

It was on these grounds, Advani explained, that the ATR had given Karunanidhi a clean chit.

Similarly, Justice Jain has questioned the motives underlying Swamy's London visit and his parleys with various LTTE leaders, but was silent when it came to suggesting action against him.

More definite when it came to Chandra Swami, Justice Jain had called for intensified probe into the mysterious $ 11 million he was possessed of, concluded that the monies were received by Chandra Swami and passed on to Adnan Khashoggi, and recommended that the source of the funds be probed, to find out if it came from the LTTE and if so, why.

The four ministers named above, however, were adamant that Karunanidhi and Swamy be probed further, and not just Chandra Swami. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee then suggested that a group of ministers -- Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, George Fernandes and some others -- examine the ATR and take a final decision.

The group -- which excluded all the ministers who had raised a hue and cry at the Cabinet meeting -- finally decided that the ATR needed to be rephrased, the reworked version to recommend action against Karunanidhi, Swamy and Chandra Swami.

By way of aside, the home ministry has received an interim report from the CBI team probing the leak of the interim report of the Jain Commission. And -- to no one's real surprise -- concluded that the leak owed to officials within Justice Jain's staff.

Rajiv Shukla

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