PANJIM: Beleaguered former chief minister Digambar Kamat has now attempted to drag the PWD Minister in the BJP-led government Sudin Dhavalikar into the ambit of the Louis Berger bribery scam. In his rejoinder to the prosecution’s reply to his bail application Kamat has said that Dhavalikar, headed a State Level Coordination Committee (SLCC) constituted after a tripartite agreement was signed between the Government of India, Govt of Goa and JICA to implement water supply and sewage works in Goa. This was done on the basis of the loan to be extended by JICA, the overseas development agency.
Kamat has chosen to play on the date of the signing of the tripartite agreement- June 7, 2007, a day before he was sworn in as the CM (though this was decided that he would be CM the next day).
However, Dhavalikar’s involvement as PWD Minister and head of SLCC was post July 23, 2007, when Kamat was well and truly in the Chief Minister’s saddle. Churchill Alemao, who is in custody for criminal conspiracy, was sworn in as the PWD minister on August 16, 2007. Importantly, on September 14, 2009 when the loan agreement between JICA and the Government of India was signed, Churchill Alemao was very much the PWD Minister.
In a rejoinder to the special court designated under the Prevention of Corruption Act, Kamat submitted the details along with government notifications to establish his submissions. The former chief minister has denied being a member of Bid Evaluation Committee, Project Initiation Unit or any other committee connected with JICA consulting services. “I did not play any role not was my intervention there in awarding or before awarding the consulting services contract,” he said, adding that Crime Branch (CB) is already in possession of these files, which it is deliberately withholding to raise false objection of his arrest.
“If the files are produced, the cat will come out of the bag, which the investigating agency does not want to happen,” he claimed.
Kamat also rubbished CB’s bribery allegation that was meant for awarding consulting services contract in 2010. “The contract was already executed and work order was issued by June 19, 2009. There was no occasion to any payment in 2010 or at any point of time to me since I was not involved in award of the contract,” he stated, explaining as per JICA guidelines his intervention was prohibited.
Kamat also raised strong suspicions on the confessional statements claiming these were done on ‘a favour for a favour’ basis to falsely implicate him in the case.
“The investigation has commenced without reasonable complaint or credible information or a reasonable suspicion that I have committed the alleged offences since no documentary evidence was available directly, indirectly or remotely to cast a suspicion on me that I have received the alleged bribes,” reads the rejoinder, submitted by his lawyer Surendra Desai.
He charged the CB investigation as being strategically dishonest to illegally fix him in the case based on the confessional statements.
The Margao MLA has termed the investigation as tainted, biased, prejudicial, one-sided, self serving and like that of a master lodging a complaint and directing his servants or subordinates to enquire into it. The complainant is referred to Home Department. “I have reasons to believe that there is a clear mandate by the present government to falsely implicate me with the object of injuring or humiliating me by having me arrested to settle personal and political scores with me,” he submitted.
He also stated that the grounds of the prosecution against him are ‘whimsical, fanciful, imaginary and self-contradictory.’
“My arrest is being sought with ulterior motive and for ulterior purpose when I am not at all required to be arrested and when my custodial interrogation is not at all necessary,” the rejoinder mentions.
In a scathing attack on the government, Kamat also stated that the mention of his name, if any in the investigation papers is tutored by the investigating agency is ‘to please its masters and who is working at the dictates of its masters.’
