Natwar ‘guilty’ in oil-for-food scam

August 4, 2006
Gulf Times (Qatar)
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NEW DELHI: An inquiry set up by the government yesterday found former foreign minister Natwar Singh and his son guilty of misconduct over the UN oil-for-food scandal in Iraq, reports said. The inquiry, headed by retired Supreme Court judge R S Pathak, decided that both Natwar Singh and his son Jagat Singh were guilty of wrongdoing, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
But no money from the sale of the Iraqi oil has been traced to either of them even though two of Jagat Singh’s friends were found to have made money from the deal, another report said.
Indian news channel NDTV said the investigative commission found the father and son guilty of misusing their positions in the Congress party to secure the oil contracts.
But it said the probe exonerated Congress - also named in a UN report as a non-contractual beneficiary in the scam - of any wrongdoing.
The reports followed Pathak handing over his 110-page report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi.
Former foreign minister Singh was accused of having written letters to the Saddam Hussein regime seeking special vouchers to purchase cheap oil.
Singh, who quit the cabinet in December over the controversy, refused to comment on the reports yesterday, according to PTI. He has in the past maintained his innocence, saying he had not violated any law in letter or spirit. 
Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi hailed the findings of the Pathak Committee which exonerated the party of any wrong doing.
The report is there for anyone to see. It is a very high-powered commission chaired by a former chief justice of India which went into the facts and records and said what it has to say, he said.
On what lay in store for Singh and his son, Singhvi said: Let us wait and study the report and then decide on the course of action relating to individuals. Meanwhile, the main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) questioned the lack of blame attributed to the ruling Congress.
On what basis was a carte blanche given to the Congress party, asked BJP spokesman Ravishankar Prasad.
Singh was removed from the post of foreign minister in November pending Pathak’s inquiry into the UN report. He remained in the cabinet as a minister without portfolio till December.
Trouble for Singh began last October when former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker issued a UN report saying Saddam’s regime manipulated the oil-for-food programme to extract about $1.8bn in surcharges and bribes.
Volcker had named Singh and Congress, India’s oldest political party, as beneficiaries of fourmn barrels of Iraqi oil each.
Singh is not expected to face criminal charges on the basis of the findings. The enforcement directorate is conducting a separate probe into alleged financial irregularities. - AFP