St Kitts forgery: Court blames officials

A special court, which on Monday acquitted controversial godman Chandraswamy in the 1990 St Kitts forgery case, pinned the blame on two senior officers in the Indian consulate in New York for the 'entire mischief'.

"The entire mischief of this case lay in the attestation of the forged (bank) documents by the Indian consul," Special Judge Dinesh Dayal said in his 23-page judgment.

"The unmindful act of Deepak Sen Gupta (the then deputy consul general at New York) and R K Rai (the then consul general) in attesting the documents without following proper procedure could have had far reaching consequences and affected the entire political scene," the court said.

Also Read Godman cleared in St Kitts case

The court noted that Gupta attested two statements of persons who never appeared before him to make those statements, while Rai attested copies of documents without having seen the originals.

Gupta and Rai attested documents under the seal of the consul general of India in contravention of all established norms, the court observed.

Coming down heavily on the duo, it said, "The power of attestation is given to responsible senior officers who are supposed to exercise the same with due care and caution.

"The false attestation of these documents by such senior officers resulted in giving a colour of authenticity to the whole story. We now know that the documents were forged and the statements were false."

The explanation given by Rai that he was asked to attest the documents, which were to be brought by the then deputy director of Enforcement Directorate A P Nanday, did not show that he was directed to make the attestation mindlessly, the court said.

On the said bank documents, Rai attested the signatures of First Trust Corporation Limited Bank managing director George D McLean.

In fact, the signatures of Ajeya Singh and his father V P Singh on these documents were not genuine and had been forged by using their signatures on their passport applications as a model.

During the trial, the Central Bureau of Investigation produced evidence to show that photocopies of the passports of V P Singh and Ajeya Singh were obtained from a passport office in India and Indian high commission in London.

It also said that V P Singh could not have given a copy of his passport for opening a bank account because his private passport had been lying in safe custody of the passport office in Delhi since 1983 when he was issued a diplomatic passport.

Evidence also showed that the copy of the passport that Nanday attested had been made from the one kept in safe custody as it bore the number of the safe custody register 158/83.

However, the court said, "In the absence of evidence of A P Nanday (who died in 1995 before the commencement of the St Kitts trial in 1997), there is no evidence as to how these copies of the passports of V P Singh and Ajeya Singh came to Nanday."