In a significant verdict, a designated CBI court here discharged former premier P V Narasimha Rao yesterday in the St Kitts forgery case saying the evidence is not strong enough to justify framing of charges against him.
Special judge Ajit Bharihoke, who also freed former Union minister K K Tewari along with Rao, said in his 37-page judgement that circumstantial evidence collected by CBI against Rao and Tewari is weak and insufficient to sustain the charges.
However, the judge held that prima facie there was enough evidence to frame charges against self-styled godman Chandraswami and his aide Kailash Nath Aggarwal for allegedly forging documents to show that former premier V P Singhs son had opened an account in a bank in St Kitts island and had deposited $21 million in it in 1986.
CBI had charged that the accused persons had hatched a criminal conspiracy to belittle former premier Singh and his son Ajeya Singh in 1989.
The judge in his order observed that admittedly there is no direct evidence on record to suggest that Rao actually participated in planning the conspiracy of forgery of documents.
CBI had contended that Rao had helped Chandraswami and former deputy director of the enforcement directorate, A P Nandey, in getting some forged documents authenticated from then consulate general, R K Rai, at New York.
During arguments on framing of charges, Rao had said that whatever he had done in the matter was at the instance of thePrime Ministers Office without having any knowledge that the documents were forged.
Rao had said that the order of enquiry into the bank account allegedly held by Ajeya Singh had been issued by R K Dhawan, who was then in the office of the PMO under Rajiv Gandhi. The court observed the Delhi High Court had already observed in the case that there was no evidence on record to make out any case against Dhawan.
The judgement said that circumstantial evidence pointed out by the prosecution against Tiwary was insufficient to justify a prime facie conclusion of his complicity in the conspiracy and there was no grounds of framing charges against him.
The prosecution had charged that Tiwary had secretly collected the passport record of Ajeya Singh and photocopy of V P Singhs passport in order to get model signatures for forgery on the fax message.
The judge observed that this contention of the prosecution is not acceptable because it is based upon surmises and conjectures.
The investigating agency has not cared to collect evidence to establish the identity of the person who sent the fax message.
