FOCUS
NATIONAL HERALD & DDCA
QUESTION OF ANSWERS
There is this proverb in Kannada, “Irulu kanda baavige hagalu bidda haage”, which means, ‘to fall into a well in the day time, that can be clearly seen in the night’. Or so, it appears, the imbroglio involving National Herald and Sonia Gandhi & her son Rahul Gandhi , the President & Vice President of Indian National Congress.
It was way back in the 1930s, during the freedom struggle, a need for a newspaper, was greatly felt by the Indian leadership of those days. Good number of them, were exposed to English education, either in England or in India. Hence they were aware of the need for a newspaper to articulate their thoughts on the freedom movement and related issues concerning India and its people. With the idea of starting a newspaper, a group of people, (details not available) got to-gether to form an Indian Non-government Company, was planned. According to available information The Associated Journals Ltd., was incorporated as a public company on 20th Nov 1937 with the Registrar of Companies, Delhi. According to the same source, the authorized capital of this company was Rs. 100,50,00, 000/-, so also the paid-up capital was Rs.91,31,39,710/-. And the registered activity was printing and publishing. The present registered office address is Herald House, 5-A Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi – 110002. Probably its original registered office may have been in Lucknow, since National Herald newspaper was started in Lucknow during Sept. 1938, by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Due to the British restriction of pre-1947 days, National Herald had a chequered growth. However post 1947, it grew both in circulation and popularity. In Lucknow, it was based out of Nehru Bhawan. In 1968, it began another office in New Delhi, which also became the registered office of the owners of National Herald, the Associated Journals Ltd.
Although National Herald was owned by a cross section of Indians, it mainly operated as the mouth piece of Indian National Congress (INC), the dominant political party of that time. Besides English, in later years, National Herald had both Hindi and Urdu editions, named Navjeevan and Qaumi Awaz.
After 1977, when INC lost power, for the first time, under Indira Gandhi, the publication of National Herald was stopped for 2 years. However with uncertain future the paper finally closed down in 1998 and under court order some of its assets were sold to settle debts. During its 60 years or so, of its existence, due to lack of modernization, it slowly and steadily lost out to the other newspapers in circulation and therefore advertisement revenue. But the show had to go on. Since, it was largely doing Congress Party bidding, Congress Party kept advancing finance to keep National Herald alive.
When, National Herald (NH) eventually closed down, Associated Journals Ltd., the registered owners of NH owed to the Indian National Congress Rs. 90.25 crores as interest free advance.
A very important point to note here is, although NH functioned as an organ of Indian National Congress (INC) the ownership of NH was not with INC. AJL is the owner of NH and its allied publications. AJL had many shareholders, who may not be members of the INC.
According to the annual report submitted by AJL for 2008/09, on 30/9/2009, there were 1062 shareholders, which got reduced to 1057 during 2009/10. However it rose to 1089 during 2010/11 and stood unchanged till 2014. Interestingly, shareholders included one Abhim Investments, with the address shown as Pratiksha, Plot No:14, 10th Road, Juhu Scheme, Mumbai. This is the well known residence of Amitabh Bachchan. Reportedly Abhim Investments holds 1 lakh shares of AJL. Among other well known names were the names of father of Shashi Bhushan, the Law Minister in Janata government, so also grandfather of supreme court retired justice Markandeya Katju. Around the same time, Young Indian Pvt. Ltd. (YIL) was inducted as one of the shareholders of AJL. Somewhere in December 2010, Board of Directors of AJL consisting Suman Dubey, Satyam Gangaram Pitroda (Sam Pitroda), Oscar Fernandese, Motilal Vora, Deepaklal Ratilal Baboria and Deepandar Singh, transferred the entire equity to YIL in lieu of taking over the Rs: 90.25 crore debt, YIL paid Rs: 50 lakh for this acquisition. How and from where the fund was generated was a question not answered. Immediately thereafter INC decided to assign the Rs: 90.25 crore debt that AJL owed INC in favour of YIL, thus made it the owner of INC debt in the books of AJL. Thus AJL became a fully owned subsidiary of YIL by virtue of this decision and transaction. However prima facie, this act had no legal sanction. Reportedly YIL had 76% shares in favour of Ms. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, balance being in the name of Oscar Fernandese and Motilal Vora in equal parts, who are both INC functionaries. Since National Herald was generally perceived to be an organ of INC, the transfer of equity in favour of YIL did not become a breaking news for our sensation hungry 24x7 electronic media.
As luck would have it, it had to be Subramanian Swamy, currently nothing to keep him busy, to spring a surprise, and possibly an unprecedented turmoil within INC. In 2012, he was the president of the now defunct Janata Party. Angling for issues, AJL transfer to YIL became a springboard for a fulltime occupancy for Swamy. Sometime in 2012, he filed a complaint before the trial court alleging that INC leaders were involved in cheating and breach of trust in the acquisition of AJL by YIL. Swamy alleged that YIL had taken over the assets of the defunct NH in a malicious manner to gain profit and assets worth about Rs: 5000 crores. He also alleged that YIL had paid just 50 lakhs to obtain the right to recover Rs: 90.25 crores loan that AJL owed to INC.
The question here is, as a news paper asked, ‘Why would you tinker with the ownership of the Associated Journals Ltd, publishers of the now defunct National Herald newspaper, unless you have some ulterior motive?’ Indeed all Indians, who are concerned, have this question, whether the swapping of the debt of Rs: 90.25 with the ownership of the AJL, had deeper and sinister design than what meets the eye?
According to the available information, there are land and buildings owned by AJL in many parts of India, in Mumbai, Delhi, Lucknow, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Indore etc. Clearly AJL was sitting on a goldmine. Reportedly, the Herald House in New Delhi was rented out to Ministry of External Affairs to locate its passport office. And this could be only a ‘tip of the ice berg’, on its commercial exploitability. Then the commercial complex in Bandra, a high end Mumbai suburb, on the land allotted for Nehru Library and Museum. Then the Multi Storey building coming up in Panchkula on the outskirts of Chandigarh. Thus it is very clear that its real estate potential could be really huge. Of course, by making settlement with shareholders, INC probably could have taken over AJL for its own resource mobilization. Obviously that was not to be. Surely some legal mind helped it arrive at a decision to float a new company YIL and with the help of only book entries and with the help of the government of the day, transferring the ownership of AJL to YIL was a smooth affair. No eye brows were raised and no questions asked.
Until one day it got Subramanian Swami, worked up, who cried hoarse of wrong doing. Being Congress in power, none bothered. The following year he knocked on the door of the court. Again nothing happened. However, the change of guard at the centre opened all possibilities. In the meanwhile Swamy changed his colours to Saffron. He joined BJP. It became an asset and liability at the same time. Maverick that he is, his every action or inaction started being linked to BJP and the Prime Minister Modi.
Matter started moving in the court. Metropolitan magistrate Gomati Manocha, had issued summons to Gandhis and others to appear on 7th Aug 2014. This was challenged by INC in the Delhi High Court and got the summons stayed. On Dec 7 2015, the high court dismissed the appeals filed by INC leaders observing that prima facie the case “evidenced criminality”. “After having considered the entire case in its proper perspective, this court finds no hesitation to put it on record that the modus operandi adopted by petitioners in taking control of AJL via Special Purpose Vehicle, that is Young Indian, particularly, when the main persons in Congress Party, AJL and YIL are the same, evidences a criminal intent. Questionable conduct of petitioners needs to be properly examined at the charge stage to find out the truth”, the Delhi High Court is reported to have said in its December 7, 2015, judgment.
Another aspect that has come to light is the donation that YIL received, was reportedly from a Kalkatta based business man through a hawala operative, could be in cash, could be unaccounted slush money.
Hence it appears to be fairly problematic for the directors and shareholders of YIL with shareholders of AJL like Shanti Bhushan waiting in the wings to stop the wrong doing by INC and its leaders. It looks uphill for defendents in the case. Best course available to them is to restore the status quo ante in AJL and save themselves of all the ignominy that may follow.
Delhi Cricket Association
Cricket is a national obsession. But Indians never thought that the administration of cricket can become an obsession for politicians and their hangers on. Since some years, Indians were dished out, details of goings on in BCCI, and the shenanigans of those who used to call shots in the corridors of cricket administration. Ever since IPL started some 8 years ago, it’s been hogging the public space for varieties of reasons. And we have witnessed all kinds of boxing going on, mostly off the pitch. As we are witnessing, some kind of a belated changes in the BCCI with changes at the top and possibly some transparency in the accountability of the humongous transactions among all stake holders, except of course the general cricket mad public and may be even the government of the day. May be someday BCCI may come under RTI and probably even pay some income tax to the state exchequer. Things started to look-up with the new BCCI president at the helm.
Suddenly DDCA which is the acronym for Delhi District Cricket Association is in the news for all wrong reasons. In some places, they even write Delhi & District Cricket Association. But for all intents and purposes it is Delhi Cricket Association. However, for the purpose of this write up, and because it is routinely referred to as DDCA, will keep it that way.
There is this Firozshah Kotla Cricket Stadium in Delhi. As a cricket playing ground it was reportedly started in 1883, for Englishmen to play cricket. As the world knows, cricket was an Englishman’s game in those years. This cricket ground slowly grew in providing better facilities to players & cricket lovers. As there is no end for improving comforts to all those who want to be in the stadium as players, as viewers and the rest of the crowd, slowly the cricket ground became a stadium, with all amenities.
This stadium is currently being managed and maintained by DDCA. Like all cricket associations of every state and the controlling agency called BCCI, has all kinds of attraction to all kinds of people. Primarily this attraction is due to the fact, that there is big money in it. Where there is honey, bees are bound to be there. Whenever there is more money than you can reasonably handle with care and openness, opaque dealings become the norm. Corruption, financial misdemeanor etc are the different references that are made to such situations. Hence DDCA with bag full of money, was no different.
Kirti Azad, BJP’s 3 time M.P from Dharbhanga in Bihar, who is a cricketer turned politician, has been making allegations of financial bungling in DDCA for a longtime. Even at that time, Arun Jaitley was the president of DDCA. But the nomenclature, was honorary president, without the involvement in the day to day administration of the club. He was the president of DDCA during 1999 to 2013, a period of some 15 years. Azad’s accusations of corruption falls within this period, and hence he feels, Jaitley as President, is culpable.
Thus, it was in 2012/13 that the UPA government of Manmohan Singh ordered investigation by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), of the Corporate Affairs Ministry. Reportedly, SFIO, did find some discrepancies in the accounting including some technical errors. However, there were no serious mistakes to warrant any penal action on any of DDCA functionaries. Reportedly, Jaitley, who resigned as DDCA President in Dec 2013, was fully cleared of any wrong doing, with SFIO report maintaining that there was nothing against him. Hence, prime facie, it should have died a natural death. But that was not to be. Why, this had to be raked up in 2015?
Right now, all Indians are aware that there is an inquiry on DDCA. Delhi government led by Arvind Kejriwal, waiting in the wings, if only to embarrass BJP and its Prime Minister Naredra Modi, has ordered its own inquiry into the affairs of DDCA. As is becoming clear, both Kirti Azad, the BJP-MP and AAP govt. in Delhi and indeed the Congress, are only targeting Arun Jaiteley, the 2nd most powerful man in the Union Government. This is little funny. The UPA government, where Congress was the major partner, had clearly exonerated Arun Jaitley, by its own SFIO report, is strangely looking for blood.
In the already vitiated and polluted political environ, this latest targeting could have been avoided. AAP, as its wont, is only fishing in the troubled water. But why is Kirti Azad, who won for three consecutive terms as an M.P on the BJP ticket should be gunning for Arun Jaitley, that too after a serious effort of BJP party president, to stop him from holding press conferences, giving statements to the press etc?!
However, DDCA and some senior cricketers are reportedly ‘solidly behind Arun Jaitley’. So also, DDCA working president, Chetan Chauhan, also a former cricketer has said that ‘Jaitley had in fact worked for the betterment of cricket in general and had made the Feroz Shah Stadium into a world class facility and it was uncalled for to drag him into this controversy’.
It is true that Azad has been talking about financial irregularities in DDCA under Arun Jaitley, for a long time. But party, for no particular reason, did not pay much heed. He continued his tirade even after, the then government of UPA cleared Arun Jaitley, in particular, of all wrong doing. It is known in party circles that Azad is a bit disgruntled. Reportedly, his wife was denied a party ticket to contest the parliamentary poll. He had also allegedly demanded plum posts in the government for his brothers, which did not materialize. Thus, is he trying to sully the image of Mr. ‘Clean’ Jaitley, if it can stick! Whatever the merits of the charges of Kirti Azad, and the charges leveled by AAP government in Delhi, the fact remains that there have been instances of financial skull-drudgery within the workings of DDCA. It is also a fact that these bungling happened during the presidentship of Arun Jaitley. Just because, he was not involved in the day to day running of the club, can he be exonerated?!
The answer is indeed a resounding ‘NO’. He has the vicarious responsibility. You cannot, ipso facto, preside over the affairs of an institution which is corrupt in its dealings and claim. ‘I am innocent.’ That will be insulting the very primacy of the law. Responsibility, prima facie, has a vertical mobility going upward.
Indeed, your hands are not dirty, but can that exempt your responsible and responsive role as the head of the institution! Of course, the damages, for defamation, as claimed by Arun Jaitley, from Arvid Kejriwal and his party functionaries, may well be within his right, but he is answerable for the dereliction of his duty as the President of DDCA at the time of those alleged corrupt episodes. Period. Hope, he rises to the occasion to put the record straight.
There is this proverb in Kannada, “Irulu kanda baavige hagalu bidda haage”, which means, ‘to fall into a well in the day time, that can be clearly seen in the night’. Or so, it appears, the imbroglio involving National Herald and Sonia Gandhi & her son Rahul Gandhi , the President & Vice President of Indian National Congress.
It was way back in the 1930s, during the freedom struggle, a need for a newspaper, was greatly felt by the Indian leadership of those days. Good number of them, were exposed to English education, either in England or in India. Hence they were aware of the need for a newspaper to articulate their thoughts on the freedom movement and related issues concerning India and its people. With the idea of starting a newspaper, a group of people, (details not available) got to-gether to form an Indian Non-government Company, was planned. According to available information The Associated Journals Ltd., was incorporated as a public company on 20th Nov 1937 with the Registrar of Companies, Delhi. According to the same source, the authorized capital of this company was Rs. 100,50,00, 000/-, so also the paid-up capital was Rs.91,31,39,710/-. And the registered activity was printing and publishing. The present registered office address is Herald House, 5-A Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi – 110002. Probably its original registered office may have been in Lucknow, since National Herald newspaper was started in Lucknow during Sept. 1938, by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Due to the British restriction of pre-1947 days, National Herald had a chequered growth. However post 1947, it grew both in circulation and popularity. In Lucknow, it was based out of Nehru Bhawan. In 1968, it began another office in New Delhi, which also became the registered office of the owners of National Herald, the Associated Journals Ltd.
Although National Herald was owned by a cross section of Indians, it mainly operated as the mouth piece of Indian National Congress (INC), the dominant political party of that time. Besides English, in later years, National Herald had both Hindi and Urdu editions, named Navjeevan and Qaumi Awaz.
After 1977, when INC lost power, for the first time, under Indira Gandhi, the publication of National Herald was stopped for 2 years. However with uncertain future the paper finally closed down in 1998 and under court order some of its assets were sold to settle debts. During its 60 years or so, of its existence, due to lack of modernization, it slowly and steadily lost out to the other newspapers in circulation and therefore advertisement revenue. But the show had to go on. Since, it was largely doing Congress Party bidding, Congress Party kept advancing finance to keep National Herald alive.
When, National Herald (NH) eventually closed down, Associated Journals Ltd., the registered owners of NH owed to the Indian National Congress Rs. 90.25 crores as interest free advance.
A very important point to note here is, although NH functioned as an organ of Indian National Congress (INC) the ownership of NH was not with INC. AJL is the owner of NH and its allied publications. AJL had many shareholders, who may not be members of the INC.
According to the annual report submitted by AJL for 2008/09, on 30/9/2009, there were 1062 shareholders, which got reduced to 1057 during 2009/10. However it rose to 1089 during 2010/11 and stood unchanged till 2014. Interestingly, shareholders included one Abhim Investments, with the address shown as Pratiksha, Plot No:14, 10th Road, Juhu Scheme, Mumbai. This is the well known residence of Amitabh Bachchan. Reportedly Abhim Investments holds 1 lakh shares of AJL. Among other well known names were the names of father of Shashi Bhushan, the Law Minister in Janata government, so also grandfather of supreme court retired justice Markandeya Katju. Around the same time, Young Indian Pvt. Ltd. (YIL) was inducted as one of the shareholders of AJL. Somewhere in December 2010, Board of Directors of AJL consisting Suman Dubey, Satyam Gangaram Pitroda (Sam Pitroda), Oscar Fernandese, Motilal Vora, Deepaklal Ratilal Baboria and Deepandar Singh, transferred the entire equity to YIL in lieu of taking over the Rs: 90.25 crore debt, YIL paid Rs: 50 lakh for this acquisition. How and from where the fund was generated was a question not answered. Immediately thereafter INC decided to assign the Rs: 90.25 crore debt that AJL owed INC in favour of YIL, thus made it the owner of INC debt in the books of AJL. Thus AJL became a fully owned subsidiary of YIL by virtue of this decision and transaction. However prima facie, this act had no legal sanction. Reportedly YIL had 76% shares in favour of Ms. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, balance being in the name of Oscar Fernandese and Motilal Vora in equal parts, who are both INC functionaries. Since National Herald was generally perceived to be an organ of INC, the transfer of equity in favour of YIL did not become a breaking news for our sensation hungry 24x7 electronic media.
As luck would have it, it had to be Subramanian Swamy, currently nothing to keep him busy, to spring a surprise, and possibly an unprecedented turmoil within INC. In 2012, he was the president of the now defunct Janata Party. Angling for issues, AJL transfer to YIL became a springboard for a fulltime occupancy for Swamy. Sometime in 2012, he filed a complaint before the trial court alleging that INC leaders were involved in cheating and breach of trust in the acquisition of AJL by YIL. Swamy alleged that YIL had taken over the assets of the defunct NH in a malicious manner to gain profit and assets worth about Rs: 5000 crores. He also alleged that YIL had paid just 50 lakhs to obtain the right to recover Rs: 90.25 crores loan that AJL owed to INC.
The question here is, as a news paper asked, ‘Why would you tinker with the ownership of the Associated Journals Ltd, publishers of the now defunct National Herald newspaper, unless you have some ulterior motive?’ Indeed all Indians, who are concerned, have this question, whether the swapping of the debt of Rs: 90.25 with the ownership of the AJL, had deeper and sinister design than what meets the eye?
According to the available information, there are land and buildings owned by AJL in many parts of India, in Mumbai, Delhi, Lucknow, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Indore etc. Clearly AJL was sitting on a goldmine. Reportedly, the Herald House in New Delhi was rented out to Ministry of External Affairs to locate its passport office. And this could be only a ‘tip of the ice berg’, on its commercial exploitability. Then the commercial complex in Bandra, a high end Mumbai suburb, on the land allotted for Nehru Library and Museum. Then the Multi Storey building coming up in Panchkula on the outskirts of Chandigarh. Thus it is very clear that its real estate potential could be really huge. Of course, by making settlement with shareholders, INC probably could have taken over AJL for its own resource mobilization. Obviously that was not to be. Surely some legal mind helped it arrive at a decision to float a new company YIL and with the help of only book entries and with the help of the government of the day, transferring the ownership of AJL to YIL was a smooth affair. No eye brows were raised and no questions asked.
Until one day it got Subramanian Swami, worked up, who cried hoarse of wrong doing. Being Congress in power, none bothered. The following year he knocked on the door of the court. Again nothing happened. However, the change of guard at the centre opened all possibilities. In the meanwhile Swamy changed his colours to Saffron. He joined BJP. It became an asset and liability at the same time. Maverick that he is, his every action or inaction started being linked to BJP and the Prime Minister Modi.
Matter started moving in the court. Metropolitan magistrate Gomati Manocha, had issued summons to Gandhis and others to appear on 7th Aug 2014. This was challenged by INC in the Delhi High Court and got the summons stayed. On Dec 7 2015, the high court dismissed the appeals filed by INC leaders observing that prima facie the case “evidenced criminality”. “After having considered the entire case in its proper perspective, this court finds no hesitation to put it on record that the modus operandi adopted by petitioners in taking control of AJL via Special Purpose Vehicle, that is Young Indian, particularly, when the main persons in Congress Party, AJL and YIL are the same, evidences a criminal intent. Questionable conduct of petitioners needs to be properly examined at the charge stage to find out the truth”, the Delhi High Court is reported to have said in its December 7, 2015, judgment.
Another aspect that has come to light is the donation that YIL received, was reportedly from a Kalkatta based business man through a hawala operative, could be in cash, could be unaccounted slush money.
Hence it appears to be fairly problematic for the directors and shareholders of YIL with shareholders of AJL like Shanti Bhushan waiting in the wings to stop the wrong doing by INC and its leaders. It looks uphill for defendents in the case. Best course available to them is to restore the status quo ante in AJL and save themselves of all the ignominy that may follow.
Delhi Cricket Association
Cricket is a national obsession. But Indians never thought that the administration of cricket can become an obsession for politicians and their hangers on. Since some years, Indians were dished out, details of goings on in BCCI, and the shenanigans of those who used to call shots in the corridors of cricket administration. Ever since IPL started some 8 years ago, it’s been hogging the public space for varieties of reasons. And we have witnessed all kinds of boxing going on, mostly off the pitch. As we are witnessing, some kind of a belated changes in the BCCI with changes at the top and possibly some transparency in the accountability of the humongous transactions among all stake holders, except of course the general cricket mad public and may be even the government of the day. May be someday BCCI may come under RTI and probably even pay some income tax to the state exchequer. Things started to look-up with the new BCCI president at the helm.
Suddenly DDCA which is the acronym for Delhi District Cricket Association is in the news for all wrong reasons. In some places, they even write Delhi & District Cricket Association. But for all intents and purposes it is Delhi Cricket Association. However, for the purpose of this write up, and because it is routinely referred to as DDCA, will keep it that way.
There is this Firozshah Kotla Cricket Stadium in Delhi. As a cricket playing ground it was reportedly started in 1883, for Englishmen to play cricket. As the world knows, cricket was an Englishman’s game in those years. This cricket ground slowly grew in providing better facilities to players & cricket lovers. As there is no end for improving comforts to all those who want to be in the stadium as players, as viewers and the rest of the crowd, slowly the cricket ground became a stadium, with all amenities.
This stadium is currently being managed and maintained by DDCA. Like all cricket associations of every state and the controlling agency called BCCI, has all kinds of attraction to all kinds of people. Primarily this attraction is due to the fact, that there is big money in it. Where there is honey, bees are bound to be there. Whenever there is more money than you can reasonably handle with care and openness, opaque dealings become the norm. Corruption, financial misdemeanor etc are the different references that are made to such situations. Hence DDCA with bag full of money, was no different.
Kirti Azad, BJP’s 3 time M.P from Dharbhanga in Bihar, who is a cricketer turned politician, has been making allegations of financial bungling in DDCA for a longtime. Even at that time, Arun Jaitley was the president of DDCA. But the nomenclature, was honorary president, without the involvement in the day to day administration of the club. He was the president of DDCA during 1999 to 2013, a period of some 15 years. Azad’s accusations of corruption falls within this period, and hence he feels, Jaitley as President, is culpable.
Thus, it was in 2012/13 that the UPA government of Manmohan Singh ordered investigation by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), of the Corporate Affairs Ministry. Reportedly, SFIO, did find some discrepancies in the accounting including some technical errors. However, there were no serious mistakes to warrant any penal action on any of DDCA functionaries. Reportedly, Jaitley, who resigned as DDCA President in Dec 2013, was fully cleared of any wrong doing, with SFIO report maintaining that there was nothing against him. Hence, prime facie, it should have died a natural death. But that was not to be. Why, this had to be raked up in 2015?
Right now, all Indians are aware that there is an inquiry on DDCA. Delhi government led by Arvind Kejriwal, waiting in the wings, if only to embarrass BJP and its Prime Minister Naredra Modi, has ordered its own inquiry into the affairs of DDCA. As is becoming clear, both Kirti Azad, the BJP-MP and AAP govt. in Delhi and indeed the Congress, are only targeting Arun Jaiteley, the 2nd most powerful man in the Union Government. This is little funny. The UPA government, where Congress was the major partner, had clearly exonerated Arun Jaitley, by its own SFIO report, is strangely looking for blood.
In the already vitiated and polluted political environ, this latest targeting could have been avoided. AAP, as its wont, is only fishing in the troubled water. But why is Kirti Azad, who won for three consecutive terms as an M.P on the BJP ticket should be gunning for Arun Jaitley, that too after a serious effort of BJP party president, to stop him from holding press conferences, giving statements to the press etc?!
However, DDCA and some senior cricketers are reportedly ‘solidly behind Arun Jaitley’. So also, DDCA working president, Chetan Chauhan, also a former cricketer has said that ‘Jaitley had in fact worked for the betterment of cricket in general and had made the Feroz Shah Stadium into a world class facility and it was uncalled for to drag him into this controversy’.
It is true that Azad has been talking about financial irregularities in DDCA under Arun Jaitley, for a long time. But party, for no particular reason, did not pay much heed. He continued his tirade even after, the then government of UPA cleared Arun Jaitley, in particular, of all wrong doing. It is known in party circles that Azad is a bit disgruntled. Reportedly, his wife was denied a party ticket to contest the parliamentary poll. He had also allegedly demanded plum posts in the government for his brothers, which did not materialize. Thus, is he trying to sully the image of Mr. ‘Clean’ Jaitley, if it can stick! Whatever the merits of the charges of Kirti Azad, and the charges leveled by AAP government in Delhi, the fact remains that there have been instances of financial skull-drudgery within the workings of DDCA. It is also a fact that these bungling happened during the presidentship of Arun Jaitley. Just because, he was not involved in the day to day running of the club, can he be exonerated?!
The answer is indeed a resounding ‘NO’. He has the vicarious responsibility. You cannot, ipso facto, preside over the affairs of an institution which is corrupt in its dealings and claim. ‘I am innocent.’ That will be insulting the very primacy of the law. Responsibility, prima facie, has a vertical mobility going upward.
Indeed, your hands are not dirty, but can that exempt your responsible and responsive role as the head of the institution! Of course, the damages, for defamation, as claimed by Arun Jaitley, from Arvid Kejriwal and his party functionaries, may well be within his right, but he is answerable for the dereliction of his duty as the President of DDCA at the time of those alleged corrupt episodes. Period. Hope, he rises to the occasion to put the record straight.
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