April 19, 1999

The tables are turned on the former ED chief as allegations of corruption are heaped upon him.

By Kumar Sanjoya Singh

Among the many ills that plague Delhi is an appalling transport system that is fuelled by the failure of the state-owned Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) to provide efficient bus services in the capital. In August 1998, presumably with an eye on the assembly elections which were just three months away, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government decided to set things right. It transferred a senior officer to the Delhi Government to run its buses. It was no routine shunting. The transfer of Manash Kumar Bezbaruah from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to the DTC was challenged in, and then quashed by, the Supreme Court.

Explaining its decision to the court, the Government said that Bezbaruah was an efficient and honest officer who would bring a semblance of order on the capital's roads. Seven months later, the same Government has taken cognisance of a November 1998 complaint by Ashok Agrawal, former ED Delhi zone deputy director, and initiated a preliminary inquiry into corruption charges against Bezbaruah. The former ED director has been accused of favouring politicians and businessmen who were under investigation by the ed. He allegedly favoured former Congress chief Sitaram Kesri who had been accused in 1997 of having an account with Barclays Bank in London. He was also accused of being lenient to Zee TV chairman Subhash Chandra in a 1996 FERA case involving Rs 300 crore.

In the Kesri case, Bezbaruah has been accused of moving too slowly on the investigations. In June 1997, Shashi Hoon, a Canada-based NRI who had informed the authorities about Kesri's account with Barclays, had requested that an ED team come to Toronto to take his statement. When he received no reply, Hoon repeated his request in December 1997. He even offered to come to Delhi if police protection was assured and his expenses reimbursed. Agrawal has charged that Bezbaruah did not respond to the requests even though the Delhi zone had conveyed them to the ed. Finally, Hoon decided to fly down to India. But, just four days before he was to catch the flight to India, he was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Toronto on January 21, 1998.

In the Zee TV case, Bezbaruah is alleged to have summarily dismissed the FERA charges against Subhash Chandra even while the Delhi zone of the ED was halfway through its investigations. The FERA case relating to the transfer of Rs 300 crore from an EEFC account was summarily closed in July 1998. Agrawal, who was the then deputy director of the Delhi zone, has charged that the investigating zone was not even consulted before Zee TV was given a clean chit by the ed. He alleges that in return for this favour, Zee TV lionised the ED director as a fearless and honest officer in its news programmes.

Agrawal himself has an AXE to grind. In December 1998, the Central Vigilance Commission, which had received complaints of his links with Chandraswami and his leanings towards Jain Studio and TV, the Barjatiya group and the Dabur group, had advised the Government to divest Agrawal of all sensitive postings. The CBI had also raided Agrawal's house in this connection.

Armed with the caveat, Bezbaruah promptly relegated Agrawal to a less important position where he was to prepare answers for parliamentary queries and monitor the recovery of penalties. It is felt that Agrawal is now trying to get even with his former boss. In fact, in his complaint addressed to Revenue Secretary Javed Chowdhury, Agrawal has detailed 10 cases where Bezbaruah allegedly showed undue leniency to the persons or companies being probed by the ed.

Agrawal is not the only one gunning for Bezbaruah. Two Delhi-based cable operators, Vipin Mehra and Roop Sharma, have filed a complaint with the Finance Ministry about the alleged FERA violation by Subhash Chandra and his brothers Laxmi Goyal and Jawahar Goyal. Mehra and Sharma also met Abhay Tripathi, deputy secretary (vigilance), Department of Revenue, in this connection. They want the ministry to investigate the circumstances in which the media mogul was given a clean chit.

But that is not an easy task. Curiously, the files relating to the Kesri and Zee TV cases are missing from the ED record room. The loss was discovered when the new director, Indrajeet Khanna, wanted to review the status of the cases on February 18 this year. Records showed that the files were last examined by Sumant Sinha, the officer Bezbaruah had handpicked to replace Agrawal but who was subsequently shifted to Mumbai as deputy commissioner (income tax). The CBI is now investigating the disappearance of the files.

Another problem is that Bezbaruah enjoys considerable support within the ministry. Bezbaruah's detractors feel that his sympathisers will try and shield him. Says Roop Sharma: "Deputy Secretary Abhay Tripathi was not even noting down the points we were making during our meeting with him. Later we came to know he is very close to Bezbaruah." However, according to G.C. Srivastava, the additional secretary and chief vigilance officer, "The meeting was just to confirm the complaint so there was no need to record the statements."

Meanwhile, the immediate victim of this conflict has been the image of the ed. The corruption charges against Bezbaruah and the CBI investigation into the missing files has brought out in the open the murky goings-on in the directorate. And shattered the myth that it is waging a holy war against corruption.

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