Raid Threat Broke Industrialists Silence On Donations To Sharma

The Special Investigation Team on the JMM pay-off case changed its strategy a bit after being taken away from the control of the CBI, and met with instant success with industrialists admitting to having played a role in the entire episode.

A senior officer said it was only after the new team members pressurised the industrialists, and even threatened them with raids on their business and residential premises, the industry luminaries accepted having made political donations to Satish Sharma - which they maintained was a normal practice in the corporate sector. The three-member CBI team, which included an officer who had earlier been packed off to Silchar by CBI director Joginder Singh, had not thought of acting tough with industrialists until it got a new identity - they functioned as court officers - from the Delhi High court.

Involvement of corporate figures in the JMM pay-off case has been a matter of gossip for quite some time. The CBI was simultaneously persuing a lot of leads, including the source of funds, but had not been able to hit the target. The pace quickened only after the intervention of the Delhi High Court.

The team got specific lead on industrialists when they grilled the personal staff and drivers employed by former petroleum minister Satish Sharma and the JMM leaders Shibu Soren, Simon Marandi and Suraj Mandal. Especially useful were the dirvers and personal staff of Satish Sharma who gave vital information on who all Sharma met on the crucial days preceding and after the confidence vote won by the Rao government in 1993. Further probe into the origin of part of the cash recovered from JMM leaders, in Rs 500 notes, led to the banks from where part of the money was drawn.Armed with this basic information, CBI sleuths swooped on the industrialsits to interrogate them. According to an officer, most of them initially denied having made any payments to Sharma. However, they soon gave in when threatened by the CBI officers with a possible raid on their eslablishments and freezing of their bank accounts.

Since political donation is permitted by law, the CBI chargesheet terms the payments so. However, the Income Tax department is likely to take over from here and investigate whether the money paid was accounted for in the companies tax returns.

The SIT has, however, not been able to gather new evidence against former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, who has also been charge sheeted along with Satish Sharma and others.

The charges against Rao are based on the evidence in the form of the statements of the JMM leaders about the meeting they had with Rao in the presence of Buta Singh.

After having discussed the demand for Jharkhand state, the JMM leaders have said Rao assured them that their other demands would also be taken care of.