New Delhi: Barely a month after the Supreme Court dismissed a plea seeking a probe against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other top politicians of the country, there comes the news of another diary—this time from Karnataka—allegedly filled with details of kickbacks to Congress leaders.
And like other infamous diary cases, this, too, began with an income tax raid last year. One of the politicians under the radar was Karnataka MLC K. Govindaraju, an aide to Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah.
Recovered allegedly from the politician’s personal papers, the diary, for those who follow such things, has a familiar format, initials and columns in which amounts are noted, according to a private TV news channel which claims to have accessed it. The amount ranges anywhere between Rs8 crore and Rs32 crore. Govindaraju has denied any knowledge of it.
He claims the writing is not his and that someone has planted the diary in his house.
It was in 1996 that the spectre of the diary first started looming large in the Indian political circles, though the item in question had actually been discovered in 1991. It was a diary maintained by hawala trader S.K. Jain and in it were tables with initials that were believed to be of some of the top politicians in the country then. Next to the initials was the amount of money believed to have been paid to these people. The figures ranged from Rs5 lakh to Rs68 lakh.
In a story done by Outlook magazine in 1997 it was reported that the S.K. Jain’s diaries documented the distribution of Rs65 crore to 115 recipients.
Interestingly, Govindaraju’s alleged diary has a rumoured total of Rs600 crore as pay off money.
L.K. Advani was one of the big politicians of that era who was named in the hawala scam and he reacted by immediately resigning as an MP, citing political credibility. Janata Dal leader Sharad Yadav, too, followed suit. Eventually in 1998 their names were cleared when the court ruled that the diaries alone were not conclusive of guilt. “No democracy can function when allegations are cast against constitutional functionaries without cogent evidence,” is what the Supreme Court also said last month when it dismissed a Public Interest Litigation filed by Common Cause, a non-profit organization, seeking a probe into allegations of bribery.
“There are two steps (to be followed when the evidence is document based); first is proving the authenticity of the document; that it is authored by who it claims to be authored by; the second is the contents of the document, which have to be separately proved, which is where you need the majority of the evidence. It’s not necessary that just because the document is proved to be an authentic document, the contents are authentic,” said Supreme Court lawyer Gopal Sankaranarayanan.
This observation comes in handy when examining the case of former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Kalikho Pul’s suicide note.
Pul, who committed suicide last year, left behind a 60-page-long suicide note, typed in Hindi, bearing his signature on every page, in which he alleged corruption not just among politicians but also some of the biggest name in India’s legal circles. “To determine the veracity of the document itself, it had to be seen whether Pul knew how to use a computer/typewriter, whether he knew flawless typing…once you have proved it is Pul’s letter, then examine whether the accusations are correct,” said Sankaranarayanan.
Pul’s wife Dangwimsai has demanded a CBI investigation into the case.
The diary also made an appearance in the AugustaWestland chopper case when it was discovered that the middle men had maintained records, albeit cryptically, of money spent, to bag the deal.
There was a time when the diaries of politicians were meant to be a repository of their thoughts, their experiences and their philosophical musings.
Most of Jawaharlal Nehru’s literary work, in fact, took place in prison. But now diaries and prison have a different connotation all together for Indian politics. And perhaps therein lies the tale of just how far this narrative has panned out.
