There is very little left to even fertile imaginations to even conjure up story of Digambar Kamat and Churchill Alemao being innocent in the Louis Berger bribery scandal. There is so much of hard evidence tumbling out, that the Crime Branch now needs to stitch it all together and close this. Anything less would be colossal failure since very rarely does an investigating agency sit on so much material against the accused which is fully admissible in court, material which cries out loud that former chief minister Digambar Kamat and former PWD minster took hard cash from representatives of Louis Berger, under instructions of their supreme Regional boss James McClung.
These are not recorded by the police under Section 161 of the CrPC. These are statements recorded “on oath of witness” under Section 164 of the CrPC in front of a Judicial Magistrate First Class. Each of those recorded are aware that any information falsely recorded voluntarily, will attract several legal action. While one of those whose statements were recorded and come into play here, – AM Wacha sundar (ex-project Director of the JICA funded project) – has the security of a government job, the other two, namely Sanjay Jindal and Malladi Sivarama Prasad are professionals working for other companies after leaving Louis Berger and need to protect their jobs and futures. Their statements assume even more significance, because they were involved in the actual handing over of the cash to Digambar Kamat and Churchill Alemao, doing so at under the “directions” of James McClung Senior Vice President and Satyakam Mohanty, referred to as the “Managing Director” of Louis Berger’s India Operations.
The dynamics within the Louis Berger corporation regarding the bribery payouts is still unfolding with the US-based consulting giant attempting desperately to distance itself from the action of James McClung and his rogue boys. Louis Berger Global is crying foul that McClung acted on his own, and the truth could well be that that he did so, to make money from the overall project (Rs 1031 crores) and not small change from the project consultancy of Rs 70-odd crores. But truth has shades of grey and it needs to be asked if McClung indeed was a solo pilot without the parent company playing the role of the air traffic controller. But that is the subject of independent research, the outcome of which Herald still doesn’t know but is confident that it will.
What Herald does know though, (and has known for long) is that three people interrogated separately have almost the exact same story of the exact amount paid, where the money was taken from and the manner in which the bribes were paid to Kamat and Alemao. Right from who gave the instructions, to the place from where cash was picked up (from the Midland Collection shop opposite Hotel Delmon, Panjim) and the manner in which cash was reached to Messers Kamat and Alemao, are detailed in each of the these depositions. There is another deposition by Prasanna Shah of Shah Consultants where the clear demand for bribes by Churchill Alemao is mentioned.
What needs to be studied with a magnifying glass is how much of this material is being used by the Crime Branch to sign, seal and deliver this case. The case will be water tight and not watery if these depositions are taken into account and the trail of bribe seeking is established. Within this need lies the need to argue and win the battle of Digambar Kamat’s custodial interrogation. It is impossible to separate the two cases of Kamat and Churchill, and continue to see the two facing two very different fates, even though their actions are absolutely identical.
While the defence will undoubtedly defend this through their battery of the top most lawyers, there is far too much information, evidence and documentation at hand, which zeroes in on cash being paid, than otherwise. In fact, the case is so heavily loaded against Kamat and Alemao, that any action which is seen as detrimental to justice being done, will evoke a very sharp public response.
The Crime Branch needs to finish this as well as it started.
