Supreme Court and Chidambaram's bail

Reading the 36 page judgement of the Supreme Court reversing the Delhi High Court decision and granting bail to P.Chidambaram, one gets the impression that one's faith in the judicial process is neither sustained nor restored.

The Supreme Court substantially agrees with the High Court, but cleverly and perhaps cunningly arrives at the contrary decision. The apex court accepts that economic offences are a class apart. It is therefore the case that the tripod test (flight risk, tampering with documentary evidence and influencing the witnesses) is not the only consideration to decide on bail applications. Yet it is also held that bail is the rule and jail the exception.

The sealed cover may contain the reasons why bail is not called for. But then, bail is the rule. The accused is 74 years old. He had to consume antibiotics in jail! Is PC the only pre-trial prisoner satisfying these conditions? The court could have used this opportunity to enquire how many such prisoners were there in Tihar jail itself. Does the court care for equality before the law?

The court accepts that the gravity of alleged offence is a relevant consideration. There is a rider there also. The maximum period of prison sentence for his alleged offence is ONLY 7 years and so bail is the norm.

Tushar Mehta had made it clear to the court that the charge sheet is not yet exhaustive and that further investigation is necessary in the interest of justice. Witnesses had confirmed that they had come under pressure from the accused and his family. All these matter little to the court because the accused is 74 years old and has lost weight while in prison. If these are accepted as exculpatory reasons for lenience in grant of bail, the prisons will become almost empty.

N.Ram's blitzkrieg

Ram has launched a blitzkrieg to retrieve P.Chidambaram from the ignominy of incarceration. A lengthy leader in The Hindu , an article in the same newspaper questioning the legality of custodial  interrogation and Ram's retweet of Kart Chidambaram's "4 Raids, 25 Summons and Custody has yielded results!" (sic) are the day's loyalty fee to PC.

Let us deal with the main arguments one by one. 1) Why pre-trial imprisonment? Is it not punishment before judgement? There are thousands of pre-trial and under-trial prisoners in India. This has not been held unlawful by the courts. PC brought pre-trial imprisonment upon himself by his execrable conduct in responding to the investigative agencies. The Hindu which did not feel the necessity for condemning arbitrary arrests and torture of innocents during the Emergency is now pleading for freedom of an allegedly corrupt former minister because he happens to be Ram's friend. When Kanimozhi and A.Raja were lodged in Tihar jail pending court hearings in the 2G case, PC found nothing wrong in the law taking its own course. (Of course, The Hindu was not in favour of their arrest also.)

2) "Custodial interrogation should be disallowed because one should not be forced to incriminate oneself." This argument is acceptable in the case of common people against whom 'third-degree methods' are possibly adopted during such interrogations. Investigative agencies dare not apply such methods where a person as well-connected as PC is involved.

3) "So many raids, so many summons and yet what has been found?" This is exactly the problem with the alleged offenders whose loyal contacts cultivated over time in many places brief them on confidential information on raids. Chidambarams are intelligent enough to throw the investigators off the scent and then ask "what have you found?" The perverted smartness of PC leaves the CBI and ED with no choice but to seek extended incarceration and custodial interrogation of the accused.

4) It is disappointing that PC is treated differently from other prisoners. How many prisoners are permitted to avail of home-made food? How many of them are allowed to meet their relatives on a daily basis?

N.Ram on P.Chidambaram

N.Ram of The Hindu confidently claims there is 'no evidence against Chidambaram.' He may well be right. However, his conclusion that 'monstrous injustice' has been done to P.C. is monumentally wrong. While talking about Chidambaram, Ram becomes as clever as the former. He only says there is no evidence of wrong-doing; he does not say that P.C. did not indulge in wrong-doing.

Why am I saying this? There is a report in The Economic Times today ( The Hindu does not believe in publishing such relevant news) regarding the invoices sent by Chess Management Services Private Ltd to INX Media for payment after FIPB absolved INX Media. Some of these invoices were drawn by Advantage Strategic Consultants Private Ltd. These original invoices were returned to CMSPL later, on their advice. These invoices would prove the connection between these two companies and PC's son and such evidence would expose the scam. Therefore, the scamsters were cleverly ensuring that any palpable evidence would be out of the reach of any future investigator. Thus the modus-operandi was "Commit the crime, make money, but destroy the evidence." So, Ram is absolutely right in saying there is no evidence! There cannot be, when the criminals are thoughtfully clever!

Ram also claims that the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court came to wrong decisions. These courts were privy to confidential information provided by investigating authorities. We may not know what this information is; but Ram would know because he has access to all confidential and secret notes (remember Rafale Notes?). Would The Hindu reveal what this confidential information is? Without this information, Ram could not have concluded that the two courts erred in their judgments.

Lord Ram is known for protecting anyone ,even if most sinful, once the person offers Saranagathi to Him. Narasimhan Ram probably feels that it is his duty to protect his friend. Let him be faithful to his friend. But let him not accuse the honourable courts of perpetrating injustice. Ram's grievance that PC is wronged for political reasons does not entitle him to demonise the judiciary. He has advised that a review petition or a curative petition has to be moved immediately, as if Kapil Sibal and Manu Singhvi are ignorant !

Rafale and Chidambaram

P.Chidambaram has questioned the purchase of Rafale on two vital issues. 1) Why did the government settle for 36 fighter jets instead of 126 and thereby jeopardise our security and 2) Since payment is made over 3 years instead of 10 years the net present value of money received by Dassault is higher and therefore they are 'laughing all the way to the bank'.

Both are good questions, but not good enough to come from a former Finance Minister.

1) The relevant comparison is not between 36 jets and 126 jets. There was no contract for 126. The UPA government lost 10 years dillydallying on the proposal and never reached any finality. The government was comatose. So the comparison is between 36 jets and 0 jet. The answer is obvious.

2) Fixed cost incurred by the supplier has to be recovered through pricing. If more jets are bought, fixed cost per jet will obviously come down. One may argue that if we buy 252 jets instead of 126 jets, price per jet will come down further. But the moot question is how much money can we afford to pay. The trade-off between security needs and cost affordability has been struck at 36 aircraft. Chidambaram's argument is the present value of money given in the 10th year is less than the same money given in the third year. Up to this point the argument is genuine. But we also should take into account the fact that in one case we will receive the jet only in the 10th year whereas in the other case the product is received in the 3rd year itself. These are actually 'forward' transactions and money is paid when supply of jet is made. Comparison is not between money paid in the tenth year and the one paid in the third year. The composite comparison is between the jet received and money paid both in the tenth year on the one hand and the jet received and money paid both in the third year on the other. Obviously getting the jet in the third year is better than getting it in the tenth year. If we calculate the present value of price paid, we must also calculate the present value of the aircraft received. Going further, the risk of the product becoming obsolete is much more in the tenth year than in the third year. Therefore the 3-year contract is better than the 10-year contract.

The honourable former minister may also fallaciously argue that the forward price for a 10-year transaction is cheaper than the same forward price for a 3-year transaction assuming there is no further premium for the intervening 7 years. But actually there is a huge premium paid by the purchaser because of product obsolescence risk in the intervening 7 years.

Chidambaram is too smart to be ignorant of these simple principles. But he is under political compulsions to make unprincipled and dubious arguments. Intellectual integrity has never ever suffered such a sharp debasement..

Chidambaram's tentacles?

This is copied from www.pgurus.com

"The Supreme Court on Wednesday (Oct.25th, 2017) barred all “illegal and dubious” probes against Enforcement Directorate’s Joint Director and 2G cases Investigating Officer Rajeshwar Singh. In his petition, the ED officer said that some anonymous complaints were filed against him after he attached Karti Chidambaram’s bank accounts and properties in Aircel-Maxis scam. The Bench comprising of Justice J Chelameswar and Justice S Abdul Nazeer issued a notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Government of India to reply within three weeks and directed no action would be initiated against Rajeshwar Singh till Court’s approval.

Rajeshwar Singh’s advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan highlighted the hardships faced by Rajeshwar Singh for the past five years. Supporting the petition, BJP leader and 2G cases petitioner Subramanian Swamy told the court that Rajeshwar Singh is an “honest officer” and Court should protect such honest officers targeted by corrupt politicians. Another petitioner Prashant Bhushan also supported the petition.

First, a set of complaints were registered against the ED officer in 2010-2011 when he summoned controversial lobbyist Nira Radia. The Supreme Court had trashed all the complaints and ensured protection to the investigating officer in 2011. During the UPA’s tenure, Chidambaram as Finance Minister did all dubious activities to shunt Rajeshwar Singh from ED and his attempts were failed after BJP leader Subramanian Swamy approached the Supreme Court. The officer joined ED in 2006 from UP Police Service and was absorbed in the ED by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). But in 2012, the Finance Ministry under Chidambaram rejected the absorption for some mysterious reasons. Rajeshwar won the case in Central Administrative Tribunal and all other forums. The Finance Ministry under Arun Jaitley and officers like the then Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das tried every trick in the book to shunt the officer from ED, who was reporting directly to the Supreme Court-monitored 2G and Aircel Maxis scam.

At one point, the Finance Ministry under Arun Jaitley lied in the Supreme Court that all probes in Aircel-Maxis probe were over and that Rajeshwar Singh should be transferred. In September 2014, on Swamy’s petition, Supreme Court ordered permanent absorptionof Rajeshwar Singh in three days. Even after the Supreme Court’s order, the Finance Ministry conducted a service case against the officer. His promotion as Joint Director wasdelayed for more than three years.

Rajeshwar Singh in his petition to the Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said that all these are frivolous complaints after he attached Karti Chidambaram’s properties. Recently after the attachment of Karti’s properties in Aircel-Maxis scam, all the enemies of Rajeshwar Singh ganged up and started filing anonymous complaints against. Their motive was to harass the officer and prevent his due promotion as Additional Director."

P.Chidambaram's objectivity

Mr.P.Chidambaram delivered the first annual lecture of The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy on March 13th. Introducing him, Mr.N.Ravi of The Hindu said that Chidambaram was as objective as a parliamentarian in opposition could be.

Chidambaram proved Ravi wrong. Even limited objectivity of an opposition politician does not require one to twist facts and manufacture innuendo which the former minister did.

Trying to prove that the present government is not scam-free, he referred to easy availability of newly printed Rs.2,000 notes with relatives of ex-chief secretary of Tamil Nadu and some engineers in Karnataka as a scam. This is the result of venality of some bank officials and is not a scam of the government. (He also referred to Vyapam scam.) If he feels compelled to call the uneven availability of Rs.2,000 as a scam, it is an admission  that there is hardly any large scale bribery a la 2G or coal allocation.

He accused the government of not knowing how to deal with NPAs. Harsh measures, according to him, will only terrorise bank officials to avoid lending.  He did not feel it necessary to admit that the previous government was complicit in generation of huge NPAs. Was he hinting that bank officials were not the cause for bad loans which were encouraged by politicians and therefore the government ought to be soft on them?

He twisted facts when he said that Raghuram Rajan did not advocate harsh steps for recovery of bad loans. In fact, Rajan was acting tough (and rightly so) which angered the powerful borrowers who were happy to see his exit.

Chidambaram revealed that Rajan was against demonetisation and therefore he was sacked. An objective person will not elevate an assumption to the level of fact. He could have qualified it as a guess.

He referred to BJP not proposing any Muslim as its candidate in U.P. and compared it with exclusion of women, SCs etc. He could have avoided the comparison because BJP nominated the maximum number of women candidates and was not behind other parties in nomination of SCs, OBCs and MBCs. Whereas other parties betrayed their communalism by choosing too many Muslim candidates, BJP betrayed its communalism the opposite way. It ill-behoves a Congress leader to accuse another party of communalism since the Congress has always treated Muslims as a vote bank. Certainly it did not suit Chidambaram's agenda to accept that BJP was the least casteist party in the U P elections.

He asserted that none of the stated objectives of demonetisation was either achieved or likely to be achieved. He conveniently ignored the fact many have deposited high denomination notes which attract nearly 50% tax plus 25% interest-free deposit. These are the money which were earlier hidden and tax-evaded and which are now brought into mainstream. A former Finance Minister is expected to be more objective.

Chidambaram right and wrong

The former Home Minister who was also the Finance Minister for some time has criticised the Modi government for its over-sensitivity to Raghuram Rajan's logical observation about the need to avoid complacency. Chidambaram is right in accusing the government of seeing ghosts where there are none.

His attempts to justify his volte-face in the Ishrat Jahan case are of course pathetic. His indefensible role in the jihad against Modi and unlawful amassing of wealth by his son will come home to roost.

A new controversy has now arisen where Chidambaram as a lawyer can air his views. The public spat between the CJI and the PM is a sad spectacle. Both the government and the judiciary are living in glass houses. The question is not who is more duty-conscious. The question is who is more indolent. Modi himself may be working tirelessly. But this cannot be said of the rest of the government. Chief Justice Thakur may be burning midnight oil daily. Other judges are not known for their indefatigable labour.

Modi and Thakur ought to realise that they are not speaking for themselves. They represent and lead institutions. Claims that government is more efficient than judiciary or vice versa will only attract sarcastic comments. The government that could not bear Raghuram Rajan's balanced observation cannot be expected not to respond to CJI's livid and lachrymose comments. Fun has only begun.

Chidambaram ,Raghuram Rajan and Nirmala Sitharaman

It is now known that P.Chidambaram as Home Minister had approved both affidavits relating to Ishrat Jahan filed with the court. His claim that the first draft which was reversed in the second was not approved by him is proved as false and misleading.

Raghuram Rajan has said that we cannot remain complacent about our economic growth and in the process referred to the proverb linking the blind and the one-eyed. He has since claimed that his words were taken out of contest.

Nirmala Sitharaman has accused Chidambaram of betraying nation's interest and has opined that Rajan could have chosen better words.

The revelation about Chidambaram is far more significant than the quibble over Rajan's words. Yet, The Hindu has given front-page coverage to Sitharaman's views about Rajan's words and has practically ignored Chidambaram's duplicity. A none-too-prominent inner page report on the controversy involving the former Home Minister was the only recognition by the newspaper. Scoops by rival media should also be prominently reported if they relate to national interests.

Innocent terrorists?

Ishrat Jahan is back in the news. The UPA government initially said she was a terrorist in an affidavit filed with the Gujarat High Court and then revised its stand and filed another affidavit disowning the view that she was a terrorist. The then Home Secretary, G.K.Pillai has confirmed that the changed stance was because of political pressure.

Needle of suspicion is obviously pointing towards the then Home Minister, P.Chidambaram. Therefore he needs to be questioned. He has also claimed that he is of the view that Afzal Guru need not have been subjected to capital punishment. What was he doing as a Cabinet minister when Guru was hanged? There are also allegations that his son engages in laundering money.

Though cases have been filed against Dayanidhi Maran for a money-laundering exercise, NDA government may go soft with Chidambaram in a game of give and take with Congress. We will only keep witnessing shenanigans by these politicians again and again.

Faith in God

The Hindu reports:

"Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister P. Chidambaram has congratulated AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa on becoming Chief Minister for the fifth term.

He, however, took a dig at the series of yagams, padayatras and processions organised by the partymen for the past six months praying her return. “This has lessened my belief in God,’ he said."

Why should this reduce his belief in God? One's faith / belief in God cannot be dependent on what others do or do not do. Chidambaram may think that one should not pray for material success though I do not think that he is so spiritually evolved. He may be of the view that God should not have granted such prayers. Who is he to decide what God must do? Or, he may just be having a dig at what he thinks is superstitious. An agnostic may say that even belief in God is superstitious. Whichever way one analyses Chidambaram's comment, one's confidence in Chidambaram's logic is reduced.

P.Chidambaram on twitter

P.Chidambaram has started tweeting. He has vowed to keep his tweets serious. It is interesting to note who he is following. To start with, he follows seven official twitters. They are:

1.Financial Times
2.BBC
3.Wall Street Journal
4.The Economist
5.The Indian Express
6.Indian National Congress
7.Karti P.Chidambaram.

The first four indicate Chidambaram's seriousness. The sixth is obligatory. The seventh is affiliational. The Hindu is a noted omission.

Jugglery in Public Finance

It is well known that public finance, unlike personal finance, is open to many sleights of hand. P.Chidambaram has proved to be a master magician, an alchemist who does not need even base metals to come up with gold.

The Budget Estimate for fiscal deficit for 2013-14 was 4.8% of GDP. It was revised to 4.6% by Chidambaram to prove his fiscal adroitness. In the eleven-month period ended 28th February, the fiscal deficit was 114% of revised estimate (in terms of actual amount). In a logical sense this means that GDP should rise by atleast 14% over and above what was budgeted if the fiscal deficit target of 4.6% is not to be exceeded. Obviously, this is not to be.

So what is the proposed magic? It is the simple trick of postponing March expenditure to April and to take credit in March for whatever income is normally due next year. Public Sector navratnas and banking cash cows have been 'advised' to release generous interim dividends.

Managing personal finances is difficult. Managing the nation's finances seems to be child's play!

Deep flaws and deep bites

P.Chidambaram has discovered deep character flaws in the personality of Narendra Modi. He is surprised that no BJP leader has tried to correct him.

Character flaws are difficult to identify. Chidambaram should have used all his psychological skills to unearth the flaws.

The doctors who autopsied Sunanda Pushkar did not require such phenomenal skills to spot deep teeth bites in her palm. It is a pity that these doctors did not have the 'Chidambaram sense' to identify the culprit. Shashi Tharoor is lucky that Chidambaram is not a doctor.

Why do we have a tendency to miss the obvious and go after the enigmatic?