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The Politics
of Awards
How Sant Singh Chatwal got the Indian establishment to honor him, and how
the Akali leadership has been no different
Sach Kanwal
Singh
 India has
courted massive dishonor for itself, thanks to poor selection of
individuals on which it conferred its national honors, the Padma
awards. While in the past too, many people of shady credentials have
gotten these awards, the decision to give a Padma Bhushan this year
to US based controversial hotel magnate Sant Singh Chatwal has
landed the ruling Congress in a major controversy.
While most of
criticism centered around the fact that India's CBI had filed four
charge sheets against the hotelier for an alleged $9-million fraud
case connected with the State Bank of India and Chatwal was even
briefly arrested in Mumbai before he got bail and left the country,
what is not being talked about is his silence on many key issues.
For example, we
do not know what was Sant Singh Chatwal's stand on Operation
Bluestar, the Indian Army's attack on Sri Akal Takht and Sri
Harmandir Sahib? We have no idea about Chatwal ever expressing a
view on Operation Woodrose. What does the Sikh community know about
Chatwal's stand on the Sikh aspirational struggle of 1980s and 90s?
Also, even as
Chatwal had spent days behind bars in 1997, it was Prakash Singh
Badal who was quick to confer upon him the award of Order of the
Khalsa in 1999 during the tercentenary celebrations of Khalsa. What
service to the Sikh community had Chatwal rendered for such an
honor? The Sikh community must ask these questions of the Akalis.
Ironically, it is Badal's alliance partner BJP that is today
questioning the award given to Sant Singh Chatwal.
Chatwal was
among 17 Non-Resident Indians whose names were recommended by an
Indian selection panel and sent to India's President Pratibha Patil
for approval. It is true that Chatwal was acquitted by the special
Mumbai court in one case in 2008 but what is also true is that he
got away because of political management of the CBI.
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What was Sant
Singh Chatwal's stand on Operation Bluestar, the Indian Army's
attack on Sri Akal Takht and Sri Harmandir Sahib? His view on
Operation Woodrose? What does the Sikh community know about
Chatwal's stand on the Sikh aspirational struggle of 1980s and 90s?
Soon after Chatwal had spent days behind bars, Prakash Singh Badal
was quick to confer upon him the award of Order of the Khalsa in
1999. What service to the Sikh community had Chatwal rendered for
such an honor? |
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Chatwal, who
recently announced that his Hampshire Hotels would set up 25 hotels
in India by 2011, has remained a powerful fundraiser for former US
President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. In
India,
as the Congress party came under fire for the Padma Bhushan to the
hotelier, the Government argued that there is nothing adverse on
record against him.
But sections of
the media, led by Indian Express that dug out Chatwal's past and the
cases, exposed how there was nothing adverse because two successive
Directors of the CBI rejected the advice of a string of
investigators — including a Special Director and Joint Director —
and decided not to appeal his discharge.
No wonder, you
have never heard Sant Singh Chatwal blasting the CBI for letting off
Jagdish Tytler or going slow on cases against Sajjan Kumar; afterall,
Chatwal himself is the beneficiary of such benevolence of the CBI.
Chatwal was an
accused in the CBI’s records for 14 years, the agency had filed two
chargesheets naming him as accused; sent Letters Rogatory abroad;
even sent a probe team to the US and put Chatwal and his wife behind
bars from February 2 to February 5, 1997. On May 30, 2007 and
August 10, 2008,
former CBI Director Vijay Shankar and the agency’s present Director
Ashwani Kumar respectively signed orders saying there was no need to
challenge the discharge of Sant Singh Chatwal and his co-accused.
This, in effect,
closed the principal case of bank fraud in which Chatwal had been
embroiled for over a decade.
Along with four
others, Chatwal was charged with being part of a “criminal
conspiracy” to defraud the Bank of India’s
New York
branch to the tune of US $8,992,815 (Rs 28.32 crore). In all, four
chargesheets were filed by the CBI, with Chatwal named as accused in
two. The trials in the other two cases are still in progress. On
January
24, 2007, the special judge issued a discharge order ruling that
there was “insufficient evidence” and no “criminal mens rea” could
be established.
But CBI records
reveal that:
• Special Public
Prosecutor Beena Raizada, the agency’s Superintendent of Police
Rajesh Nirwan and Deputy Inspector General A M Prasad said, on the
record, that an appeal should be filed.
• The CBI then
sought the opinion of E E Karthak, General Manager, Reserve Bank of
India, who also said that an appeal should be filed in the High
Court.
• U S Dutt, CBI
Joint Director, in his opinion dated May 9, 2007, described the
alleged fraud as a “gross violation of banking norms” and strongly
called for challenging the discharge order.
At this stage,
the Chatwal case took a turn remarkably similar to what happened in
a string of “politically sensitive” cases. The agency armed itself
with the “opinion” of S K Sharma, the CBI’s Director of Prosecution,
to move to bury the case. On May 17, 2007, Sharma gave a five-page
opinion ending with the clincher: “I am not able to find any flaw
with the discharge order by the court to recommend revision...”
Despite this,
the very next day, CBI’s Special Director M L Sharma took a
contrasting view: “On balance I am of the view that we may have the
impugned order taken up in the High Court by filing a revision
petition.”
And on May 30,
then Director S Vijay Shankar signed off: “I tend to agree with the
view of the DoP that there is no flaw with the correctness of the
discharge order and the matter be allowed to rest.”
Similar was the
journey towards burial in the second chargesheet.
Here, too, the
CBI was sharply divided on what to do when the discharge order came
on March 31, 2008 on grounds that “sufficient proof” could not be
placed before the court and that the statement of a key player was
not recorded.
• The agency’s
Deputy Legal Advisor, Deputy Inspector General and Additional Legal
Advisor all opined in favour of an immediate appeal.
• This was
backed by Joint Director U S Dutt who on June 24, 2008 wrote: “I
agree with the opinion of DLA, DIG and
ALA
for asking for a revision in this case.”
• Once again,
DoP S K Sharma took the contrary stand. On July 24, 2008, he said:
“...considering the merits of the accused, I agree with special
counsel that there is no manifest illegality or the order is not
patently erroneous so as to justify interference by a review court.”
On August 10, 2008, CBI chief Ashwani Kumar, barely a week after he
took charge, endorsed Sharma’s decision.
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Each of the men at the helm in CBI who helped Chatwal were also the
men who cleared the clean chits that the CBI prepared for Jagdish
Tytler and others. Are you in any doubt about how the CBI manages to
act to shield the guilty instead of bringing them to book? Men like
Chatwal, who are and were in powerful positions, and were expected
to raise their voice, were instead busy twisting the procedures and
taking help of the CBI bigwigs to escape the full force of the law. |
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Each of these
people have headed the CBI at the time when the agency was supposed
to be moving full steam ahead in cases against Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish
Tytler and others. Are you in any doubt about how the CBI manages to
act to shield the guilty instead of bringing them to book?
Men like Chatwal,
who are and were in powerful positions, were expected to raise their
voice; instead, they were busy in twisting the procedures and taking
help of the CBI bigwigs to escape the full force of the law. One
statement by Chatwal that CBI was guilty of gross misconduct in
trying to give a clean chit to Tytler and claiming that it was not
possible to get witness Jasbir Singh to testify would have
pressurised the agency, but Chatwal was busy getting the agency to
let him off the hook in fraud cases at that time.
The ruling
establishment loves such people. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and
his PS TKA Nair attended Chatwal's son's marriage that was so
extravagant that Discovery Channel thought it fit to telecast its
recording under the banner "Big Fat Wedding". What kind of message
does the Government of India want to send to the people by honoring
such worthies?
Chatwal, said
the government, helped
India
swing the Indo-US nuclear deal. But there are two questions: The
nuclear deal is a divisive issue, and within
India, there is
no unanimity on this. The Sikhs opposed the deal, at least wide
sections of the community did. Why should the deal be made a
criteria?
But here is
more: even here, New Delhi courted more shame. While the Ministry of
Home Affairs of India claimed that Chatwal was a “tireless advocate
of India’s interests in the U.S.” and had been “an active member of
the NRI community in the U.S. in securing support for the nuclear
deal among the members of the Congress of the United States”, the
Indian Embassy in Washington DC, which presumably had first-hand
knowledge of the NRI community’s advocacy, declined to nominate him
when asked by the Prime Minister’s Office to do so.
Clearly, the
controversy surrounding his financial dealings in India and America
was a problem.
Ironically, at
that time, Chatwal was being considered for the Padma Shri, a lower
category of award than the Padma Bhushan he was given later.
You know who was
pushing Chatwal's name for the award? Samajwadi Party's Amar Singh.
The Samajwadi Party was supporting the Congress-led UPA government
in New Delhi on the nuclear deal and the SP leaders, in turn, were
grateful to Chatwal for bringing Bill Clinton to Lucknow for a
function in 2005. But the embassy in US said Chatwal's contribution
was much less than that of other Indian-Americans and awarding him
would demoralise the others.
Clearly, New
Delhi has now sent a message that India did not regard lack of
transparency in financial dealings as a disqualification for its
highest honours.
When the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in the U.S. sued him for
recovery of $12 million he borrowed from First New York, a bank of
which he was a director and which subsequently went bankrupt, Mr.
Chatwal testified that he had/ assets of only $2,600 and a cash
balance of $100. He said the multi-million dollar luxury penthouse
he lived in belonged to his brother, to whom he paid a monthly rent
of $5,000, “pursuant to an oral sub-lease,” out of the $6,700 he and
his wife earned every month as employees of a hotel and restaurant
respectively.
In sum, the FDIC
wryly noted, Chatwal “has managed to continue living in luxurious
style in the same penthouse apartment he resided in at a time he
claimed a net worth of tens of millions of dollars without adequate
explanation of how his family’s limited income is able to support
such a lifestyle.”
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The
ruling establishment loves such people. Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh and his PS TKA Nair attended Chatwal's son's marriage that was
so extravagant that Discovery Channel thought it fit to telecast its
recording under the banner "Big Fat Wedding". What kind of message
does the Government of
India
want to send to the people by honoring such worthies? |
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The FDIC, a
government agency which guarantees the safety of deposits in banks
and is a key part of the regulatory machinery for the U.S. banking
system, said Chatwal, as a director of First New York, “participated
and knowingly engaged in the practice of … extending poorly
underwritten loans to Bank directors and their related entities
which involved more than the normal risk of repayment, resulted in
unsafe concentrations of credit for the bank and violated the bank’s
internal lending policies.”
Despite taking
the stand in 1997 that the $12 million debt Chatwal owed was “non-dischargable,”
the FDIC changed tack in December 2000, one month before Bill
Clinton demitted office, agreeing to a settlement of $125,000.
To the simple,
innocent Sikh masses who were happy to see a turbaned man among the
list of awardees, we can only say that among the excuses and
explanations that India’s Home Ministry was able to muster to defend
the award to Chatwal was the fact that he was also “honoured with
the Rajiv Gandhi Award in 2005.”
How many Sikhs
in the first place will accept an award in the name of Rajiv Gandhi?
How many will feel honored by such an award? And to top it all, so
badly was that award managed that none other than Rajiv Gandhi’s
daughter intervened to get the award discontinued. Even now, the
Congress party has made it clear that it had nothing to do with and
had “no connection whatsoever” with Chatwal and it was purely a
government decision to award him the Padma Bhushan.
But what is
strange is the fact that while the BJP has raised such a ruckus over
the honor going to a tainted Chatwal, Parkash Singh Badal, an
alliance partner of the BJP, is silent. He should either condemn the
honor given to Chatwal, or he should defend Chatwal since it was his
decision to give him the Order of the Khalsa. As for Chatwal, he can
still do his best to retrieve some good name: he must ask his good
friends the
Clintons
to get the world community to probe the Chattisingpora killings of
the Sikhs on the eve of the visit of then President, Bill Clinton,
to India. He must work with the administration in the United States
and use his links and friendships with the people in the right
places to ensure that New Delhi is made responsive on issues of
genocide of the Sikhs, the continued denial of justice to the
victims of the 1984 pogroms, the state sponsored restrictions on
religion, the rising wave of Hindutva in India, the reprisal
terrorism now being backed by many Hindutva minded organizations and
sundry other issues. How about starting a movement to get the RSS
banned and its assets frozen in the western world where the Chatwals
can play such a meaningful role? If Chatwal wants the community to
stand by his side, he will have to do the least minimum for it.
Courting the powerful and working for the haves will never get you
the support of the marginalized. The only way he can earn real
goodwill is to stand on the side of the truth.
3
February 2010
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