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Narasimha Rao, Buta face jail terms in JMM case

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

P V Narasimha Rao today became the first Indian prime minister to be convicted in a criminal case, when CBI special judge Ajit Bharihoke found him and former home minister Buta Singh guilty in the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha bribery case. The hearing took pace in the high-security Vigyan Bhavan annexe.

Reading out his historical verdict, Bharihoke said Rao and Buta Singh will undergo jail term for offences under Sections 120 (b) of the Indian Penal Code relating to criminal conspiracy, and sections 7, 12 13, 13 (2) and 13 (1d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, pertaining to misuse of office by public servants.

Pronouncing the verdict in a packed court, Bharihoke acquitted nine others including former Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal and former Union minister Ajit Singh.

The special court will hear arguments on points of sentence on October 11, when Bharihoke will pronounce the operative part of the judgment.

Others acquitted were V Rajeshwara Rao, a relative of the former prime minister, former Union ministers Satish Sharma, former chief ministers Bhajan Lal and M Veerappa Moily, former Karnataka ministers H V Revanna and Ramalinga Reddy, and Bangalore-based liquor barons M Thimme Gowda and D K Adikeshavalu.

All the accused, including Rao and Buta Singh, were present in the court. However, they refused to comment when asked if they would appeal against the verdict.

Rao's counsel R K Anand however said that they would appeal, stating that he was disappointed over the conviction in the case as there was no evidence.

Judge Bharihoke had reserved his judgement on May 30 at the end of a three-year-long trial during which virtually all the key witnesses, among the 100-odd who deposed in the court, had turned hostile.

The case, the first against a former prime minister filed under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, relates to the alleged bribing of Opposition MPs to defeat the July 28, 1993, no confidence motion against the then Congress government headed by Rao.

Of the three CBI cases filed against Rao, he is still facing trial in the 100,000-dollar Lakhubai Pathak cheating case, but has been discharged in the St Kitts forgery case.

In all, the CBI had filed three chargesheets between October 1996 and January 1997, naming 21 as accused. While one of the accused, Shailendra Mahato, was allowed to become an approver, nine were discharged in the light of a Supreme Court order on April 17, 1998, ruling that MPs taking bribe to vote in Parliament enjoyed constitutional immunity against prosecution.

Subsequently, the CBI also scaled down the number of the witnesses from about 250, stating that most of them had become irrelevant in the light of the apex court verdict.

The nine accused who were discharged were the three former JMM MPs -- Simon Marandi, Shibu Soren and Suraj Mandal (besides Mahato, also a JMM MP), -- and the former break-away Janata Dal (A) MPs -- Ramlakhan Singh Yadav, who was also a Union minister, Abhay Pratap Singh, Anadi Charan Das, Ram Sharan, Roshan Lal and Haji Ghulam Mohammed.

During the final arguments in the trial court, the CBI contended that the ''summary of clinching evidence/incriminating circumstances presented'' had made it clear that ''there is sufficient evidence'' against all the 11 accused.

The accused, in their individual personal statements and arguments through their counsel, however, maintained that no witness had deposed against them.

The JMM bribery case: Chronology

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