Accountability first
THE motivations may have been different but members of the Lok Sabha this time were as keen as the other citizens of the country to avoid mid-term elections.

Oil embargo fuels tension
NATO’s attempt to impose a total oil embargo on Yugoslavia has the potential to rupture its tenuous relations with Russia.

Ntini fails black Africa
THE conviction of Makhaya Ntini for having raped a young woman has understandably sent a wave of shock and disbelief among the black communities in South Africa.

LOK SABHA’S DISSOLUTION
Inevitable and desirable
by Inder Malhotra
WITH the dissolution of the Lok Sabha and the decision to hold fresh elections as soon as possible, only the inevitable has happened.

Environment: an illogical approach
by Bharat Jhunjhunwala
THE environment of the world is threatened due to the increasing population in the developing countries as well as rising consumption levels in the industrial countries.

Punish the killers, a widow wails
SHIMLA: “Who has killed my husband and why?” This is the question that Renu, 49-year old widow of Harsh Baljee, a leading hotelier of Shimla, has addressed to the police and civil authorities continuously over the past two and a half years.

“Ownerable” shirts
by I. M. Soni
THERE is a great deal of amazement and misunderstanding on the part of the wives (mine included) about the husband’s inexplicable liking for certain shirts. They wonder as to why grubby hubbies are infatuated with some shirts while they treat others as outcasts, which seldom win a come-hither nod.

75 Years Ago

Assam Legislature
Governor’s proroguing speech
IN the course of his speech proroguing the Assam Council, His Excellency Sir John Kerr explained the position of the Ministers with regard to the Council’s action in reducing their salaries.

Accountability first

THE motivations may have been different but members of the Lok Sabha this time were as keen as the other citizens of the country to avoid mid-term elections. Despite the wishes being in step, the collective desire has not been fulfilled. Personal agendas of some puny leaders have proved to be more important than the good of India and the country has been saddled with yet another election. What has been done cannot be undone. It is now the responsibility of the leaders and the citizens alike to ensure that the sorry spectacle is not re-enacted. The trouble is that there is no guarantee that the next election will not throw up as fractured a mandate as the previous one did. There is just a vague hope that the disgust over the antics of the single-member and single-digit parties will be strong enough to goad the electorate to throw these irresponsible persons on the garbage heap of history. But the way even the national parties have conducted themselves during the past fortnight and more, one cannot cling to that hope too strongly. The coalition era is upon us and it is futile to fondly reminisce about the times when two or three parties dominated the national scene. The question arises: what if the 13th Lok Sabha is as badly divided as the 12th one was? That will make the entire poll exercise a futility.

If at all there can be a safeguard, it is in terms of the voters demanding that whatever holy or otherwise alliances are to be forged, these should be in place before the elections. The permutations and combinations emerging after the elections reek of rank opportunism. That does not mean that the coming together of the parties before the elections will be in any way in keeping with some high principles, but at least the voters will know for whom they are voting and on what issues. Nor will these alliances be any surety against a party later walking into the opposing camp. But at least the atmosphere of a mandi witnessed after the Vajpayee government was pulled down will be avoided. Ours is a detailed and written Constitution. But the Founding Fathers could have never comprehended that a situation will arise where the fate of a government will depend on the vote of an MP who has already been appointed the Chief Minister of a State. Now that politics has plumbed unforeseen depths, there is need for evolving such healthy conventions that no party practises what is constitutionally not prohibited but is morally wrong. At a later stage, there is also need for taking a fresh look at the efficacy of the anti-defection laws keeping in view the tendency of some parties to put their block of MPs on sale not in retail but in the wholesale market. The Constitution has been amended earlier in response to the developing situations and there is no reason why it should not be proofed against the deeds of the people whose conscience is not the pricking type. Similarly, there is justification in the demand that the laws should be so amended that the Lok Sabha enjoys its full term of five years, even if some small leaders with big egos are bent upon blinding themselves in one eye to gouge out both eyes of a rival. The nation has been held to ransom by these buccaneers for far too long. The august House can do with return to value-based politics instead of price-based auctions.

Oil embargo fuels tension

NATO’s attempt to impose a total oil embargo on Yugoslavia has the potential to rupture its tenuous relations with Russia. It is one thing for member countries like Greece to cut off crude supplies to Yugoslavia but quite another to enforce undeclared sanctions. Russia meets a major part of the oil demand and it will never agree to join NATO in this hare-brained plan. Any attempt by NATO to block the unloading of crude and petrol in the only Yugoslavian port in Montenegro will trigger unbearable tension in the Balkans. Russia which has resisted loud demands by hawks to do much more than extend moral support to fellow Slavs, has activated the diplomatic channel to defuse the situation. So alarmed is Russia at the prospect of getting sucked into the conflict that President Boris Yeltsin rang up President Clinton and cranked up the rusty consultation machinery. Mr Strobe Talbott is flying to Moscow to resume the disrupted negotiations with Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, Russia’s pointsman on the Kosovo issue. Mr Talbott is an old Russian hand and Mr Chernomyrdin is a tough negotiator.

The oil embargo move reflects the growing frustration of NATO at the surprisingly stiff resistance of President Slobodan Milosevic. During the past five weeks of campaign NATO has conducted more than 30,000 sorties and has destroyed oil refineries and storage facilities in the name of crippling the military machine of Serbia. It flattened the main television centre, claiming that it was spewing out false news. Even the residence of President Milosevic was bombed, suspecting it to be an important command centre. Now there is the distinct possibility of NATO running out of credible targets, and hence the oil embargo and the incessant talk of a ground attack. Last week, NATO Secretary General Salona talked of asking commanders to update the war plans, which included sending in troops. During the 50th anniversary celebrations of NATO in Washington, British Prime Minister Tony Blair sought a consensus on extending the war, although his Foreign Minister promptly played it down for fear of adverse public reaction at home. In fact, there is considerable opposition to the NATO war against Yugoslovia after bypassing the UN.

NATO has been charging President Milosevic of destabilising his neighbours. Actually the war has already imposed great burden on two of the neighbours — Albania and Macedonia. More than 40 per cent of the two million-strong Kosovars have fled to these countries as refugees. Most of them live in tents or more likely under the open sky. Not many carry travel documents and hence bringing them back home later is going to be a problem. NATO has not fought a war before and its lack of experience shows in the way it has started one in Kosovo without a plan to end it. If President Milosevic holds out — and he seems to getting ready to dig in — the alliance will have a big problem. The talk of a ground attack seems to be a bluff, at least for the present. The hilly terrain should make that option unattractive. Air attack has limitations. Now there is the biggest threat to politicians: even TV channels are losing interest in the Kosovo war.

Ntini fails black Africa

THE conviction of Makhaya Ntini for having raped a young woman has understandably sent a wave of shock and disbelief among the black communities in South Africa. The talented medium fast bowler would have been the first black cricketer to represent the country, after the lifting of apartheid, at the World Cup in England next month. The United Cricket Board promptly dropped him from the team although he intends to file an appeal against his conviction. Of course, Paul Adams and Herschelle Gibbs are the first “non-whites” to play cricket for South Africa. However, a dash of “colour” is not the same thing as having a genuine son of the soil represent his country in any discipline. There are those who may argue that the hearing of the case should have been delayed until after the World Cup or Ntini should not have been dropped from the team on the basis of the verdict of the trial court. However, a careful reading of the Ntini episode would show that South Africa under President Nelson Mandela does not seek to confer special privileges on the basis of one’s colour. He does not want South Africa to carry forward the baggage of racial hatred and vendetta of the despicable apartheid era. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up to help the people get the poison of racial hurt out of their system. Mr Mandela could well have opted for a reservation policy in which the blacks could have been granted special privileges — like immunity from conviction for rape — to help them get over the handicap of centuries of repression by the white rulers. That would have resulted in “reverse apartheid”.

The Ntini verdict is a reaffirmation of the principle that all are equal in the eyes of the law. Adherence to the doctrine of equal opportunities, irrespective of one’s caste, colour or creed, should serve South Africa in good stead and help it emerge as a mature and stable country. What bodes well for the country with a mixed population is the mature response of the victim, who too is a black. She claimed that Ntini had offered her, through an intermediary, a handsome amount of about Rs 7 lakh for withdrawing the charge. She told a newspaper that “at first I felt reporting the rape was a mistake. It felt like everyone hated me, blaming me for ruining Ntini’s life...he has been found guilty ...I am glad I had the courage to stand up for my rights”. It is indeed unfortunate that a promising career may have been cut short because of the trial court’s verdict. However, it must be understood that a robust system can throw up a thousand Ntinis in any discipline. Had the court set him free, in spite of the evidence against him it would have been a case of one Ntini killing the system. On current form South Africa is still the best team in international cricket. If Hansie Cronje is able to lift the World Cup, it would be a case of a pre-dominantly white team making a pre-dominantly black South Africa proud of the achievements of its cricketers. It would also be a case of the coloured nations winning six of the seven World Cups. The only time an all-white team won the trophy was in 1987 when Australia beat England in an all-white final in Calcutta.

LOK SABHA’S DISSOLUTION
Inevitable and desirable
by Inder Malhotra

WITH the dissolution of the Lok Sabha and the decision to hold fresh elections as soon as possible, only the inevitable has happened. This will be readily accepted except by those whose partisan passions cloud their judgement. For, it has been said before and it bears repetition that the arithmetic of the 12th Lok Sabha, combined with the perverse political culture that has developed in the country, just could not sustain a stable government.

In any case, the fractious ruling coalition, led by Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, had lost its majority, though by the narrowest possible margin of a solitary vote. To this poignant fact a sharper edge has been lent by the failure of the rival, “secular” camp to form an alternative government even though, in its belief, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav had boasted on the floor of the House that once the BJP had exited, a new government would be set up “within five minutes”. These have turned out to be the longest five minutes in history as also rather ludicrous.

But, then, as painstaking researchers have already underscored, momentous decisions have been taken, in old, established democracies by a single-vote majority. These included, for example, the beheading in Britain of King Charles after a bitterly fought 58-to-57 vote in the British Parliament. Any number of American Presidents have been elected by a single-vote majority in the electoral college, in one revealing case after 27 rounds of balloting.

However, that apart, let’s look at the messy situation in another way. Suppose instead of failing by a solitary vote, the BJP-led government had survived. Nobody doubts that it could have done so only by one vote or at the most by two. After what redoubtable Ms Jayalalitha had done, how much longevity would have been added to the existence of the ruling combination that has now become caretaker? Alternatively, assuming that the Congress had succeeded in forming a minority government or allowed the so-called and utterly shadowy Third Front to assume power under the leadership of Mr Jyoti Basu, how long would the precarious new arrangement have endured?

Fresh elections were thus unavoidable. Isn’t it better than they be held sooner rather than later? Doubtless, elections are costly and if held too frequently rather than weary. But shouldn’t the Indian voter, consistently praised as shrewd and even wise, share some of the responsibility for the present state of affairs with wayward and self-serving politicians of all hues?

An electorate that had the sense and discrimination to throw out Indira Gandhi after the Emergency and bring her back less than three years later because the succeeding regime turned out to be worse than a gaggle of squabbling and ineffectual geese is expected to realise the perils of giving a hopelessly fractured verdict time and again. And this brings me back to the utterly unmanageable numbers game in the Lok Sabha that has been deservedly dissolved.

The BJP had slightly less than a third of the total number of seats. It therefore needed at least a hundred MPs as its allies to form a government that could be even remotely viable. In order to muster them even the support of 16 parties was not enough because the majority it thus obtained was wafer thin. More striking was the fact that the next largest constituent of the ruling coalition, the AIADMK, had a total of 18 members or one-tenth of the BJP’s strength in the House. And yet, so fragile was the rag-tag combination that Ms Jayalalitha, with 18 extraordinarily loyal supporters, had little difficulty in pulling the rug from under the BJP’s feet.

Ironically, she did so for crassly personal reasons. But here again, while she kept the Prime Minister and his government on edge all through the 13 months that the government lasted, Mr Vajpayee and his colleagues had bent over backwards to placate and appease her. In the process they had bent the rules and compromised themselves in a manner that should have shamed them. Instead, they have suddenly discovered that the temperamental lady from Chennai was the “mother of corruption”. Were Mr Vajpayee and Mr L.K. Advani unaware of all these when, before the previous elections, they travelled to Chennai to pay court to her, forge an alliance with her that enabled them to breach the barrier of the Vindhyas and hailed her as the launcher of the “southern wave”?

Sordid though all this may be, it is not the worst part of the story. The more worrying reality is that there were no fewer than 39 parties in the dissolved Lok Sabha. Nearly a dozen of them were single-member or single-digit parties. Given the roughly equal numbers on both sides and the highly inflamed polarisation, each individual MP, leave alone a group of three, had acquired dangerously disproportionate clout.

The situation on the other side of the divide, as has been demonstrated so vividly, was hardly better. If Ms Jayalalitha, with 18 members, could engineer the fall of the BJP government, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, with 20 MPs behind him, blew to smithereens the Congress plans. The motives, both hers and his, were largely personal and parochial, aggravated by pique.

This melancholy matter is of some importance because implacable personal hatreds are unlikely to disappear before the various combinations and permutations for the coming poll are attempted. The DMK will not touch even with a barge pole any grouping with which Ms Jayalalitha is associated. For Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav any truck with the Congress — he asked his Muslim general secretary to declare to the wide world that in the department of “communalism” both the BJP and the Congress were “two sides of the same coin” — even though for this he has been upbraided by not only the Left but also his pal, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav. For Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, one of the six Janata Dal MPs, any political combination on which falls the shadow of Lalooji is untouchable. And so on.

The Congress and its leader, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, have doubtless lost some shine during the unhappy drama staged in Delhi over the last fortnight. It is particularly surprising that Mrs Gandhi, who had shown herself to be a mature and moderate leader, suddenly adopted a different course and appears to be in a hurry to become Prime Minister. She even laid down her terms without showing potential allies the courtesy of consulting them. Above all, she allowed herself to make, from the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan, claims which later turned out to be hollow.

For this, as usually happens in such circumstances in the Congress, her “advisers” are being roundly blamed. Differences among Congress leaders, unexpressed earlier, have come to the surface. Mr Arjun Singh is the main target of the ire and the fire of angry Congressmen. The Economist has quoted one of them to the effect that Mrs Gandhi was misled by “68-year-olds with heart bypasses”.

Altogether, therefore, the BJP has good reasons to be happy. There is a discernible sympathy wave in favour of Mr Vajpayee; more than that in favour of his party. The BJP continues to be in office until the last votes are counted. It could build on this promising foundation. But true to its petulant nature the saffron party has embarked on a vicious campaign of vilification against the President. On a different plane, it has started attacking Mrs Sonia Gandhi, because of her foreign origin, in terms and tones that are in very poor taste. Both these exercises could prove counter-productive.

Environment: an illogical approach
by Bharat Jhunjhunwala

THE environment of the world is threatened due to the increasing population in the developing countries as well as rising consumption levels in the industrial countries. Therefore, when Western NGOs like World Watch argue for population control without simultaneously asking for a reduction of consumption in their own countries it rings a hollow bell. More so because the population problem in the developing countries is itself, partly at least, result of their exploitation by industrial countries. Thus, if the likes of World Watch are serious about the earth’s environment, then the first thing they must do is to argue against the transfer of resources from the developing to the developed countries. By shying away from doing so they become self-defeating. The continued exploitation of the developing countries results in poverty and an increase in population and environmental degradation.

In its recent publication “Beyond Malthus”, World Watch has asked the developing countries to control their population as they simply do not have the resources to feed them. But it has to be left to the sovereign choice of each country as to how many human beings they wish to support. It is for India to decide whether it would like 1 billion people at per capita income of $ 400, or 2 billion at $ 200. World Watch has no locus standi here as long as both alternatives are sustainable. If the USA wants more lion safaris and less human habitations, and India more villages than reserved parks, it is their own choice.

Those countries which do not exercise this choice diligently and increase their population beyond what their natural resources can sustain would be punished ruthlessly by mother nature. Thus if Zimbabwe is set to lose about 25 per cent of its adult population to AIDS, then they alone are to blame.

A free world would most likely be composed of nations which have exercised this choice differently. Zimbabwe may choose to have large numbers some of which may die. India may have large numbers at lower incomes. The USA may have a few at a high income level. We will have to learn to live with this diversity. The diversity also implies that governance will break down in some cases. There is little possibility of securing good governance among all the 200-odd countries that exist today. There will certainly be some Zimbabwes.

The USA or, for that matter, the UN cannot force its opinion upon any country. Therefore, there is no alternative but to bear through the adverse effects of one country’s action on the environment of others. It is important to remember though that it is not that Zimbabwe alone hurts the earth. Those like the USA hurt the environment as much, if not more, by their ever-increasing consumption. Just as Zimbabwe has to live with the global warming brought about by heavy fossil fuel consumption of the USA so also the USA has to live with the land degradation brought about by Zimbabwe.

Of course, the USA may plead with Zimbabwe to limit its population so that the US environment is not disturbed. They may work out a mutually acceptable arrangement by which the USA may pay to Zimbabwe money for limiting the latter’s population. If the USA saves $ 100 by planting forests in Africa, then let it share, say $ 50 with Zimbabwe. But it has to be a business contract between sovereign nations.

Such an arrangement presumes a world free of exploitation. The USA cannot first enter Zimbabwe, take out its timber and minerals, create poverty, and then ask it to limit its population in its own self-interest and not even pay for doing so. Alas that is what the industrial countries seek and NGOs like World Watch become their instruments for achieving this.

It is well known that the industrial countries consume most of the world’s energy, material resources and oceanic catch, and spit out most of its carbon dioxide. These resources are sucked out of the developing countries through various unfair means shrouded though they are under a veil of market compulsions. Thus Zimbabwe sells its copper cheap to the USA and buys electric cables dear. This transfer of resources makes Zimbabwe poor. And that encourages Zimbabwians to beget more children as an insurance against poverty. It is, therefore, the poverty wrought upon the developing countries which is, in part at least, responsible for their population explosion.

The West, which is crying hoarse about the threat to the earth’s environment, has built its present wealth through the exploitation of the colonies, of the slaves, by trade cartels (remember the banana republics of Central America) and, more recently, by IMF austerity programmes (the East Asian crisis, for example). It is to that extent responsible for the poverty and population explosion in the developing world.

Now that we live on one earth, it is natural for the industrial countries to be concerned about the deterioration of their environment due to population explosion in the Third World. The least they could do is to stop imposing “austerity programmes” and “macroeconomic stabilisation”

“Ownerable” shirts
by I. M. Soni

THERE is a great deal of amazement and misunderstanding on the part of the wives (mine included) about the husband’s inexplicable liking for certain shirts.

They wonder as to why grubby hubbies are infatuated with some shirts while they treat others as outcasts, which seldom win a come-hither nod.

What they do not understand is that there are some “honest” shirts while others are not. The former are highly ownerable, the latter may be only honourable.

I am not intrigued why certain ones (poor cousins) always surface to the top of the drawer to be worn. This happens day after day. Others (rich cousins) neglected ones, remain sunk to the bottom of the pile to be dragged out say once or twice a year and that too in an emergency.

Here are the reasons why the honourable ones remain discards.

The shirt is fine, except that the sleeves are a bit too long. It gives me a feeling, a sense of being shorter, to make me feel small all day along.

The button at the right cuff is missing. Once in a while, I do bestow favour on it but find that the left one is hanging loose and can fall off any moment like an over- ripe fruit. I begin to look for the cuff-link but give up the effort as it gives me cough.

The shirt is of synthetic fibre. It itches and a miserable man knows what itching at the neck means. Or the collar is frayed. It conveys the impression that I am a tight wad and starved of presentable shirts. After all, a man is partly known by the company of his shirts.

This one has a hole burned by dropped ash which cannot be covered even by a flashy cricket-bat size necktie.

The collar is very stiff. It makes me look a stiff-neck which according to the dictionary means stubborn, obstinate and difficult to deal with. The slang meaning is drunk and intoxicated. Can you wear a shirt which gives you a look like that?

Such shirts also redden the nape, make rotation of the neck prohibitive and even distressing. All in all, it makes me feel that I am the fellow on the gallows, on parole for a day.

If, out of compulsion, I do wear one, I untie the top button to breathe easily. This gives me the appearance of an out of work actor which ill fits a pensionless university teacher.

Sometimes, I had to remove the necktie and pocket it which gives me a sneaking feeling that open-neck gives me the look of Raj Kapoor’s Awara.

Despite the size printed on the neckband, the collar threatens to strangle me. It gives me the look, but not the lift, of having had a drink!

Awaiting Judgement

Punish the killers, a widow wails

SHIMLA: “Who has killed my husband and why?” This is the question that Renu, 49-year old widow of Harsh Baljee, a leading hotelier of Shimla, has addressed to the police and civil authorities continuously over the past two and a half years.

Still engulfed in gloom and sitting in the Baljee Restaurant on The Mall, Renu says Harsh was suave and gentle and did not have enmity with anyone. Why should anyone have killed him?

She pauses for a minute and adds that Harsh’s parents, Mr C. Baljee and Mrs Sushil Baljee, had a dispute with Mr Inder Pal Chaudhary, a Delhi-based builder, and his wife, Minakshi Chaudhary. They had entered into an agreement with the Chaudharys way back in 1980 for the sale of their orchard at Bharari near Shimla. The Chaudharys were asked to take the necessary permission from the state government for the execution of the sale deed.

As a matter of policy, the Himachal Pradesh Government does not permit non-Himachalis to buy immovable property in the state. Since Mrs Chaudhary was a Himachali and her husband a non-Himachali, the government granted permission for buying only one-half of the orchard. This was not acceptable to the Chaudharys. Harsh’s parents refunded the earnest money to them as they failed to get the official nod for purchasing the entire orchard.

The Chaudharys, on the other hand, filed a suit for specific performance of the contract. The case is now pending in the High Court.

Renu reminiscences: Harsh was a religious person. Every morning and evening he would perform pooja. He did not take non-vegetarian food on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

She recalls: “November 14,1996, was a Thursday. Harsh telephoned me from the restaurant to ask me what I had prepared for dinner. I told him that I had cooked baingan ka bharta and moong ki dal. He asked me to lay the table and said he would be reaching home within 15 minutes”.

As was his routine, Harsh left the restaurant at 9 pm, walked about a 100 yards and sat in his van parked on the busy, high-security road with the Western Command headquarters on the one side and the offices of the Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police on the other. He had hardly started the vehicle when some unidentified persons emerged from the darkness of a cluster of trees, pumped a bullet into his left temple and disappeared again under the cover of darkness. His head soaked in blood, Harsh was rushed to the Indira Gandhi Medical College where he was declared dead by the Medical Officer on duty in the casualty department.

The Shimla Police registered a case of blind murder on November 15, 1996. The next day it recovered the spent cartridge and sent it to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory. The ballistic expert opined that a .38 bore revolver had been used by the killer.

After meticulous investigation for several months, the police came to suspect the motive behind the crime to be the property dispute between the Baljees and the Chaudharys, especially because Harsh was the only member of the family who had pursued the litigation.

It was also gathered that in September, 1996, Chaudhary came to Shimla, met the manager of Grindlays Bank, Mr Ashok Dhawan, and told him that he apprehended a threat from Harsh and needed security. This was corroborated by the Assistant Manager of the bank, Mr L.D. Paul.

On the basis of this information, the police obtained warrants for the arrest of Chaudhary from the Chief Judicial Magistrate. He was arrested on April 11,1997, produced before the court and remanded in police lockup for custodial interrogation until April 17. During his questioning Chaudhary denied having discussed his security with the manager of Grindlays Bank. He admitted, however, that he had asked for secretarial help. His PA, who too was questioned by the police, revealed that three Punjabi-speaking persons had called on Chaudhary in his office in September/October,1996.

After obtaining his consent, Chaudhary was put to a lie detection test conducted by Prof Joginder Mohan, Head of the Psychiatry Department of Indira Gandhi Medical College. Before the test could be concluded, however, Chaudhary backtracked and refused to take any such test. Even during his interrogation he did not disclose much and remained hospitalised at the medical college from April 15 to 17, 1997, after he had complained of chest pain. His bail application was turned down by the Sessions Judge, and he was remanded in judicial lockup.

A distraught Renu Baljee regrets the failure of the police to file the challan in court within 90 days — the statutory precondition for keeping a suspect behind bars. This led to Chaudhary’s release on bail on July 11, 1997, and stalled further investigation.

Mr A.K. Puri, Mr S.R. Murdi and Mr R.L. Sood, Additional Director-General of Police (CID), former SP of Shimla and SP (CID), respectively, however, maintain that Harsh’s was the first contract killing case in the relatively crime-free hill state. In such a case it is difficult to link the chain that can lead to the main accused. Even the actual killers may not know for whom they have committed the crime. It is for this reason that the investigation of this case has not made much headway.

The investigation also got bogged down in the crossfire of litigation between Chaudhary and Renu. While still in judicial lockup, Chaudhary moved a petition in the Himachal High Court seeking transfer of the case to the CBI. He alleged that he was “tortured, brutalised and dehumanised” to such an extent that it was difficult for him to narrate the trauma he had been through.

He claimed to be totally innocent and maintained that he was implicated on mere suspicion as he was in litigation with the parents of the deceased.

In its reply the police denied the allegations. The alleged torture had been concocted by Chaudhary with a view to creating false grounds for filing the petition. It maintained that Chaudhary had been medically examined regularly at Indira Gandhi Medical College as also by senior doctors at the Din Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital.

In their order dated July 3,1997, Chief Justice M. Srinivasan and Justice A.L. Vaidya observed: “In the present case, nothing has been brought on record which in any way establishes that the investigating agency has transgressed the circumscribed limits and has exercised the powers in breach of any statutory provisions causing serious prejudice to the personal liberty of the petitioner... the present petition being devoid of any merit is accordingly dismissed.” The Judges also slapped costs of Rs 3,000 on Chaudhary.

Chaudhary contested the order before the Supreme Court. Pursuant to the interim direction of the apex court, the state government transferred the investigation of the case to the Crime Branch of the CID.

Dismissing the special leave petition of Chaudhary on September 1,1998, Mrs Justice Sujata V. Manohar and Mr Justice G.B. Pattanaik held: “Pursuant to the interm direction of this court, the investigation having been handed over to the CID, which is an independent agency, the major grievance of the petitioner is satisfied.”

A day after the dismissal of Chaudhary’s appeal by the apex court, Renu Baljee filed a petition before the State Human Rights Commission, saying she was “tormented by anonymous and pseudonymous letters” and that she apprehended a threat to her life. She urged the commission to take cognisance and issue appropriate directions to the investigating officers for bringing the culprits to book.

The CID, Crime Branch, which took over the investigation of the case from the district police, filed a status report before the commission stating that during search of Chaudhary’s house some papers were seized “revealing that a meeting took place between Chaudhary and C. Baljee in connection with the apple orchard dispute” but no settlement could be arrived at.

The report unravelled that Chaudhary had deposited a sum of Rs 36 lakh with the Motor General Finance Company, New Delhi. He withdrew a sum of Rs 13 lakh from this company on November 12,1996 — just two days before Harsh’s murder — and deposited the same in the American Bank at Delhi the next day. On November 14 — the day Harsh was killed — he withdrew the amount from the bank and paid it to one Mr Rattan Lal Gupta.

The police also found out that two employees, Sanjeev Bedi and Anil Jain, used by the finance company to forcibly recover vehicles of loan defaulters financed by the company, had absconded. The finance company did not reveal their whereabouts. It appears that Chaudhary had some communication with Rajiv Gupta, Chairman and MD of the finance company, the report added.

The investigating agency, the report said, also gathered that three persons stayed in the Sher-e-Punjab Hotel at Shimla on November 13, 1996, under fictitious names and addresses and left the hotel the next day. The police got their computer portraits prepared and circulated to various police stations in Himachal Pradesh and other states.

The portraits matched with those of one Parminder Singh, alias Pammi of Muktsar, and his associate Deepak Bhandari, a resident of Bathinda, who used to stay at Vasant Kunj in Delhi. They used to earn money by forcibly evicting people from properties in Delhi.

Parminder is said to have shot himself in Delhi in January, 1997, while Deepak is believed to have been murdered at Chandoshi village in U.P. a few months after Harsh’s murder.

The Crime Branch maintained that “there appear to be two strong motives” behind the murder of Harsh. First, the property dispute and second, “intimate personal relations”(?). The conduct of Chaudhary is “highly doubtful and suspicious,” it said.

The commission was informed that the conspiracy to kill Harsh by “musclemen and hired goondas” like Sanjeev Bedi and Anil Jain and suspects Parminder and Deepak was, in all probability, hatched in Delhi. The mysterious death of Parminder and Deepak also required further investigation in Delhi, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.

After considering the status report and Renu’s petition, the commission headed by Mr P.C. Balakrishna Menon held on October 28, 1998, that since further investigation into the matter was to be held outside the territorial jurisdiction of the Himachal Pradesh Police, it would be appropriate if the investigation was entrusted to the CBI.

As recommended by the commission the state government wrote to the Union Home Ministry on February 15,1999. In a surprising twist, however, the CBI declined to take over the case.

Renu Baljee now plans to move the High Court, urging it to monitor the investigation of the case by the Crime Branch so that her husband’s killers are caught and punished. “If the murderers of my husband are not arrested, I fear I would be their next target,” she concludes in a choked voice.

75 YEARS AGO

Assam Legislature
Governor’s proroguing speech

IN the course of his speech proroguing the Assam Council, His Excellency Sir John Kerr explained the position of the Ministers with regard to the Council’s action in reducing their salaries.

They felt that it might be intended to an expression of want of confidence and respect in which they were held.

In view of those considerations, the Ministers decided to retain office and His Excellency trusted their patriotic and public-spirited action would be appreciated as it deserved to be.