The charge sheet filed in the Louis Berger bribery case was along expected lines. However, the first reading of the tone and tenor of the charge sheet focuses attention almost solely on former Congress Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, who has managed to avoid arrest after being granted an anticipatory bail, whose challenge in the Supreme Court hasn’t yet been heard for a year now. Quite obviously, the charge sheet comes in a politically charged atmosphere, where the Kamat and the Congress are screaming “vendetta”.
While this may allow them to get some traction, within a constituency which has in any way moved away from the BJP and looking at alternatives, it must be said that the investigating agency is very upbeat about the amount of information they have managed to extract and the statements that they have managed to procure, leading to an FIR against unknown politicians being escalated to a charge sheet where Kamat has been named as the prime conspirator.
Politically, it will be a challenge for both Mr Kamat and the Congress, to play political victim and turn this around as politically motivated. The Kamat camp has begun by saying that news about the charge sheet was ‘leaked’ just before the results of the by-elections of one of the wards of the MMC and at a time when the business end of the 2017 assembly elections will begin. This is a rhetoric that the party too will adopt, as evident from GPCC president Luizinho Faleiro’s initial remarks. (See report on inside Page 1)
However, it’s a tall order for this move to pay off completely. Firstly, the Congress in Goa isn’t really an epitome of absolute unity, and should be congratulated for its honesty in admitting it in responsible circles. Sections within the party, especially old timers and some former Chief Ministers, will be more than comfortable at the discomfort of Kamat, as his campaigning will be disrupted with frequent visits to the court.
But the bigger challenge is to counter some of the pretty direct and serious charges, because beyond the politics, there’s the investigation and its findings that have to be countered and the first task is to prove the findings wrong, which actually means proving all the statements procured of those in the know and who have worked with Kamat, including co accused A M Wachasunder, former head of JICA aided projects in Goa, were incorrect.
Louis Berger was part of a consultancy consortium with two Japanese firms and an Indian partner appointed to manage the $311 million Goa water supply and sewerage project awarded in 2009. To secure the work of the project from the Goa government, the company officials had allegedly paid huge amounts as bribes to then Chief Minister and PWD minister, which was revealed in the US judiciary department.
Holistic Urban Innovation Pvt Ltd received Rs 4.20 crore from Louis Berger Group as a sub contract for consultancy. Holistic Urban Innovation Pvt Ltd pays Gagandeep Trade Link for a further subcontract of Rs 2.20 crore. Holistic Urban Innovation Pvt Ltd returned the extra amount of Rs 2 crore to Satyakam Mohanty, a Louis Berger official, as a kickback. Mohanty, then transfered this Rs 2 crore from Delhi to Goa through Raichand Soni, a Hawala agent. LB officials Sanjay Jindal and Ram Prasad Malladi received money on different occasions from Soni in Goa and paid to ministers. The charge is that cash of Rs 50-60 lakh was delivered by Jindal at CM’s official residence ‘Mahalaxmi’ in the presence of Wachasunder and cash Rs 50-60 lakh was delivered by Jindal and Malladi at his residence in Malbhat-Margao.
The onus is now on the ‘prime conspirator’ Mr Kamat to prove this money trail wrong.
But what could be more damaging than the alleged bribe amount of Rs 1.20 crore, is that several bank accounts in his name or that of his associates and relatives, with massive amounts of money have been traced, according to the Crime Branch, and companies in which his relatives were directors benefitted from government contracts during his tenure as Chief Minister.
Mr Kamat has clearly rubbished these stating that contracts which accrued to some of these companies happened purely on merit and his IT professional son who returned to India at the fag end of his term as CM and built his own practice. But Mr Kamat is not up against a political party but an investigating agency, which he may well argue is politically controlled. But that won’t help him in court unless he has hard counter evidence.
While there is no doubt that this is not the mother of all bribery cases politicians have been involved in and Mr Kamat is no solitary black sheep in a sea of purity, it is a very publicly discussed international bribery case where substantive prima facie evidence has been placed which warrants a serious look. And in election year, this takes a form and substance of its own.
