On May 9, 2019, Senior advocate #HSPhoolka told ANI at New Delhi that “There is enough evidence on record to show that in 1984 when the Sikhs were being killed, the instructions were coming directly from the Prime Minister’s Office and the Army was not called in… We have placed our evidence on record before the Nanavati Commission as well as Mishra Commission.”
I have no idea what evidence he and others placed before various commissions but I can share with the readers what I remember of October 31 and certain questions which have been haunting me since then.
At around 11 AM on that fateful day, when I was taking a meeting with some officers of the Indian Airlines in my office in the Yojna Bhawan (office of the erstwhile Planning Commission), a junior colleague barged into my room and broke the news that ‘Indira Gandhi has been shot at and taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.’ As all first learned later, she was already dead but at 11 AM the All India Radio gave the news only of her being shot and admitted to the AIIMS.
About half-an-hour or 45 minutes thereafter, I received a full phone call from my wife to give the same news but what she further said was very alarming. She told me that a friend of hers ‘has told me that there was going to be violence in Delhi and we should bring our children from schools immediately.’ She told me that she was going with her friend to bring the children.
Her friend was the wife of my colleague in my earlier department. I knew that he had close associations with some Congress leaders. We were also neighbours. As I learnt later, he had received a telephonic message from one of his contacts that there was going to be violence and he asked his wife to bring the children from school.
During the lunch break, along with several colleagues of the Planning Commission, I walked to the PTI building, a few yards from my office, to get the latest news which was coming from the BBC. A large gathering had gathered there for the update. The BBC had announced that Indira Gandhi was no more. The AIR announced the death only in the evening news bulletin, after Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as her successor.
As we all know, the first incidence of the anger against the Sikhs was reported from the areas around the AIIMS. In the evening, at 5:30 PM, the motorcade of President Zail Singh was stoned when it came near the AIIMS.
The burning, looting, and killing started in the morning of November 01. Violent mobs armed with iron rods, carrying cans of kerosene oil (used for burning), tyres (used for putting around necks of Sikhs before burning them), and guns were targeting Sikhs – young and old, men and women – in their homes, buses, streets, in fact wherever they could be spotted. Congress leaders like Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler were seen leading and inciting violent mobs.
The genocide continued for nearly 4 days, not only in Delhi but in several other parts of the country. Everywhere the police remained a mute spectator.
Three questions that have been haunting me are,
‘Who took the decision that Sikhs should be massacred and when?’
What was the motive of those who took the decision to indulge in genocide?
How could they (the congressman) mobilise criminals on such a large scale and arrange large quantity of Kerosene oil, a large number of tyres and iron rods overnight?
The first question is crucial because the massacre of Sikhs did not start spontaneously. Had it been spontaneous, the government would have intervened immediately to stop it. So, who decided to start?
A criminal decision to commit genocide with an assurance that the government would not stop it for a couple of days, could not have been taken at the level of small fries like Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler, and H.K.L. Bhagat.
Even senior Congress leaders (ministers in Indira Gandhi cabinet) could have taken such a decision.
The Prime Minister’s Office consisting of bureaucrats could not have taken such a decision.
Was the decision taken by Rajiv Gandhi himself even before he became Prime Minister?
Or, was someone very powerful giving orders from behind the curtain? The person giving orders was so powerful that nobody could disobey him/her.
Did Rajiv Gandhi’s buddy actor Amitabh Bachchan give the call of “khoon ka badala khoon” (blood for blood) on his own or was he reading from a script given to him?
The timing is also very important. In closed circles friendly to the Congress, the alert had come when preparations were being made. The perpetrators of crime did not lose much time to start preparations.
I am surprised that such a vital question has not been raised. Perhaps, we will never know who took the decision and when.
The second question, motive, is also very crucial. What did the commander who took the decision and ordered massacre expect? Was the expectation that it would provoke the Sikhs and there would be Hindu-Sikh right in the country?
The developments did not take place according to their motive. Hats off to the Sikh community that despite, according to the estimate, torturing, killing and burning about 30,000 members of the community in the country, they did not retaliate. They only cried at the cruelty and the loss of their dear and near ones. Those days we saw a large number of Hindus protecting and giving shelter to their Sikh neighbours. This was an excellent example of Hindu-Sikh unity that must have shocked the perpetrators of the crime
The third question is crucial because Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler & Company could not have mobilised all the resources required for the massacre so quickly without a network available and close links with criminals. There must have been a chain of command to arrange a large number of criminals and large quantities of lethal materials.
I got some answer to the third question sometime in 1986. My elder daughter was in Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital for appendectomy. Those days the attendants managing parking areas meant for cars were overcharging and harassing car owners. Being a frequent visitor to the hospital prior to my daughter’s admission, I had made a number of complaints to the Medical Superintendent but he expressed helplessness. He told me that the license issued to the contractor had expired two years back and had not been renewed; he could not throw the contractor out because he had got a stay from a court.
Since I had to keep my car parked during nights also, I decided to be practical and befriended the attendant of the area where I used to park the car. When he became quite friendly (he hinted that he expected me to help him get a government job), he told me that a couple of contractors who were basically criminals were controlling all the parking lots in Delhi and they had had political patronage in lieu of which they provided men and material for criminal activities of their patrons. One such occasion mentioned by him was when Sikhs were to be massacred. He told me that the criminal contractors were among those who mobilised more members of the fraternity, arranged large quantities of kerosene oil, a large number of iron rods and tyres and even guns at short notice.
This was the first and hopefully this last case of state-sponsored (even if at the command of a non-state entity) genocide in a democratic country. For a couple of days, India reminded of Nazi Germany when innocent Jews were killed at Hitler’s order. Had the purpose been served, India would have acquired a stigma for ever.
It is a slur on historians and investigating agencies that we do not have answer to such a critical question even after 35 years.
[In a parliamentary system of government, the executive, Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister, is accountable to the elected representatives of the people. This can be ensured only when the leader elected by the political party or the alliance of political parties constituting the majority of the elected representatives is appointed Prime Minister. Head of the State, King/Queen in Britain and President in India, cannot appoint a Prime Minister of his or her choice, Yet, in 1984, the then President of India did exactly that. Appointment of Rajiv Gandhi even before he was elected leader of the parliamentary party.]
A about 9:20 AM on October 31, 1984, two security guards fired 33 bullets at the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. 23 bullets entered her frail body. She must have died on the spot though doctors declared her dead at 2:20 PM and Doordarshan (TV channel owned by Govt of India) made a formal announcement more than 10 hours later of the assassination of one Prime Minister (Indira Gandhi) and the appointment of a new prime minister (Rajiv Gandhi) in the same news bulletin
In the second volume of his memoir, The Turbulent Years: 1980-96 (published, January 2016), former Indian President Pranab Mukherjee (Finance Minister in the Indira Gandhi Cabinet) has given an insider’s account of, inter alia, political developments between 9:30 AM when he received the news and 7 PM when the announcements were made. Here is a summary of the account given by him. (Pranab Mukherjee has given a detailed account to reply to his critics who claim that after Indira Gandhi’s assassination, he wanted to be Prime Minister. Nevertheless, his account is important as it throws light on how the Congressmen and the then President of India acted in violation of the Constitution.)
On that fateful day, when the security guards were firing deadly bullets at Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi had just begun addressing a meeting at Ramnagar in West Bengal. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Railway Minister Ghani Khan Chowdhary were also present on the dias. At about 9:30 AM, Mukherjee received a wireless message from police that ‘lndira Gandhi assaulted. Return to Delhi immediately. Immediately they left for Kolaghat from where they went to Calcutta in a helicopter. From Calcutta they flew to Delhi in a special plane of the Indian Airlines. Besides Rajiv, Mukherjee and Chowdhary, others in the plane were Uma Shankar Dikshit (West Bengal Governor), his daughter- in-law Sheila Dikshit, Lok Sabha Speaker Balrani Jakhar, Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Shyainlal Yadav, Secretary Generals of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and several officials of the Parliament. Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha teams were returning after cancelling the All-India Speakers’ Conference which was being held in Calcutta. A little after 1 PM Rajiv who received the update on wireless in the cockpit broke the news that ‘she is dead.’
After the leaders had got over the shock, they started discussing the issue of succession. (It is an old saying that ‘King is dead. Long live the King.’) Mukherjee recalled precedents; after death of a Prime Minister (Nehru in 1964 and Shastri in 1966), the senior-most minister Gulzari Lal Nanda was shown in as the interim PM (pending election of a leader by the Parliamentary party). However, in view of (in Mukherjee’s words) ‘an extraordinary situation when an incumbent Prime Minister had been assassinated’ the idea of interim PM was dropped and it was decided that Rajiv Gandhi should take over as full-fledged Prime Minister. Mukherjee conveyed the decision to Rajiv who asked whether he would be able to manage it. When Mukherjee assured him that he would, he agreed to succeed his mother. On Mukherjee’s advice, Rajiv Gandhi went inside the cockpit and to relay a message to Delhi that Rajiv Gandhi’s appointment as PM and Indira Gandhi’s assassination would announced simultaneously.
At Delhi airport, Cabinet Secretary C. T. Krishnaswamy Rao advised Mukherjee to take over as interim PM as had been done in the past but Mukherjee apprised him of the decision already taken. Indira Gandhi’s Principal Secretary P. C. Alexander supported the decision but raised the question how Rajiv would be elected leader of the Congress Parliamentary party (CPP). Mukherjee told him that “there was no time to convene a meeting of the CPP, and that the Congress Parliamentary Board (CPB), the highest policy-making of the party, could meet and take the decision which could later be ratified by the CPP. All those present agreed with this proposal. Rajiv’s consent was also obtained.”
At that time only two – Mukherjee and PV Narasimha Rao (who had rushed from Hyderabad to Delhi) – of the eight members of the CPB were present in Delhi. They signed a resolution electing Rajiv Gandhi as leader of the CPP. They also prepared a letter to the President to convey that the CPB “has nominated Shri Rajiv Gandhi as Leader of the Congress Party in Parliament. You are therefore requested to invite Shri Rajiv Gandhi to form the Government.” As party general secretary G.K. Moopanar signed the letter.
When the letter was being prepared, President Giani Zail Singh was returning from Oman. Mukherjee writes that some Congress leaders suggested that in the absence of the President, Rajiv Gandhi should be shown in by the Vice President. Mukherjee opposed it on the ground that “this power lay with the President unless, in his absence, he had delegated it to the Vice President. There had been no such delegation by Giani Zail Singh. Therefore, if the Prime Minister was sworn in by the Vice President, it would have been unconstitutional. Moreover, politically, it would have conveyed the wrong message.”
When the President’s plane landed at Delhi, Arun Nehru (as advised by Mukherjee) entered the plane to apprise the President of the decision before he alighted. From the airport Zail Singh proceeded to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) where Indira Gandhi’s body was still lying. He returned to Rashtrapati Bhavan with Rajiv Gandhi.
At the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Mukherjee, Narasimha Rao and PC Alexander met Vice President R. Venkataraman. When told of the decision, he replied: ‘As you like.’ Mukherjee asked Rajiv Gandhi to wait in the Ashoka Hall. When the Congress leaders met Zail Singh, he told them that he had already decided to invite Rajiv to form the government. He formally invited Rajiv Gandhi to form the government. Immediately, Rajiv sent a letter to the President giving a list of 4 persons to be shown in with him at 6:45 PM.
At the time suggested by Rajiv Gandhi, he was shown in as PM. The Rashtrapati Bhavan issued a press release officially announcing Indira Gandhi’s death and formation of a new government headed by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Doordarshan telecast both the news.
Mukherjee writes that before requesting the President to invite Rajiv Gandhi, he had consulted several Congress chief ministers who had gathered at the AIIMS. All of them supported the idea.
As a senior Congress leader in 1984 and as President of India later, Mukherjee did not consider Rajiv Gandhi’s appointment as PM, without his being first elected as leader of the CPP, unconstitutional. No one ever questioned the constitutional validity of what had been done. Those considering the appointment constitutional may cite certain provisions of the Constitution:
Article 74: There shall be a Council of Ministers which the Prime Minister at the head to aid and advise the President who shall, in the exercise of his functions, act in accordance with such advice.
Article 75 (1): The Prime Minister shall be appointed by the President and the other ministers shall be appointed by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister.
Article 75 (2): The ministers shall hold office during the pleasure of the President.
Thus, going literally by these provisions, President is within his powers to appoint anyone as PM of India. However, India being a parliamentary democracy, President has no power to appoint a person simply because he wants that person to be PM. True, the Constitution has not mentioned the term ‘Parliamentary democracy’ anywhere but the basic characteristic of the Parliamentary system of democracy is contained in Article 75 (3) for the Union government and Article 164 (2) for the State governments.
Article 75 (3): The Council of Ministers shall be collectively responsible to the House of the people.
Article 164 2): The Council of Ministers shall be collectively responsible to the legislative assembly of the State.
The other essential features of the parliamentary system, not mentioned in the Constitution, are found in the conventions, developed mainly in Britain where the parliamentary system evolved, and to some extent in our own country.
The members of the Constituent Assembly (CA) debated extensively the powers of the President, his relationship with the Council of Ministers and the importance of conventions.
On December 10, 1948, member K. T. Shah moved a resolution in the CA that the President should be given real and wide executive powers and called “Chief Executive and Head of the State”. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, K. M. Munshi, Alladi Krishnaswami Iyer and others strongly opposed it on the ground that India would have the British parliamentary system of government. (C.A.D. Vol III, p. 32)
Opposing direct election of the President, Dr. Ambedkar said that for a nominal head, direct election was unnecessary. He opposed the proposal to provide a secretariat to the President on the same ground. (In course of time, President acquired a secretariat of his own. It is headed by a full-fledged Secretary to the Government of India.)
When a member H. V. Kamath asked whether in the event of the President refusing to act according to the advice of the Council of Ministers, could he be impeached? Dr. Ambedkar’s blunt reply was that there was no doubt about that. (C.A.D. Vol X, p. 268-72)
The President of the CA, Rajendra Prasad emphatically suggested that the Constitution should have specific provision that the President was bound by the advice of the Council of Ministers. Opposing the suggestion, Dr. Ambedkar said that there was a proposal to add an “Instrument of Instructions” to the Constitution to ensure that. However, this proposal was dropped as being unnecessary. Dr. Ambedkar said that since India was adopting the parliamentary system of government, it was also adopting the British convention that head of the state must act according to the advice of the Council of Ministers.
About the importance of the conventions, Rajendra Prasad said in his last speech in the CA on November 26, 1949 that “Many things which cannot be written in a Constitution are done by conventions. Let me hope that we shall show those capacities and develop those conventions. The way in which we have been able to draw this Constitution without taking recourse to voting and to divisions in Lobbies strengthens that hope.”
Despite these clarifications, doubts and debates continued in the early years of the Republic. On April 12, 1955, in a landmark judgement in the case of “ Rai Sahib Ram Jawaya Kapur And Ors. vs The State Of Punjab” 1955 ( AIR 1955), the Supreme Court tried to settle the issue. The court said:
“In India, as in England, the executive has to act subject to the control of the legislature; but in what way is this control exercised by the legislature ? Under article 53(1) of our Constitution, the executive power of the Union is vested in the President but under article 75 there is to be a Council of Minister with the Prime Minister at the head to aid advise the President in the exercise of his functions. The President has thus been made a formal or constitutional head of the executive and the real executive powers are vested in the Ministers or the Cabinet. The same provisions obtain in regard to the Government of States..”
Despite such a clear interpretation of the provisions by the Supreme Court, the final interpreter of the Constitution, the debate continued for a few years. On November 28, 1960, President Rajendra Prasad stated that ‘since the Constitution nowhere says that the president was bound to act on the advice of the Council of ministers, it was wrong to consider powers of the President of India as equal to those of the British Queen and that the Indian constitution was based on the British constitution.’ He suggested examination of the position of the President under the Constitution.
It was an about turn by Rajendra Prasad who as President of the CA had stated that “Although there is no specific provision in the Constitution itself making it binding on the President to accept the advice of his ministers, it is hoped that the conventions under which in England the king always acted on the advice of his ministers could be established in the country also and the President would become a constitutional President in all matters.”
Subsequently, Prime Minister Nehru stated in the Parliament that there was no doubt that the President was only a constitutional head.
Noted scholar K. M. Panikkar (The Foundations of New India, 1963, p. 153) has rightly said though we have a written constitution, it is based on the unwritten conventions of British parliamentary system.
The real problem is that very often a plain reading of law does not reveal the whole truth. We cannot understand the parliamentary system of government without understanding the conventions.
The Constitution nowhere says that if the government loses a motion of confidence, it must resign but responsibility to the lower house means that it must resign. Similarly, the Constitution does not say that when a money bill is lost in the lower house, the government should resign. However, in such a case a government has to resign because that amounts to loss of confidence in the government.
The Constitution nowhere says that the Prime Minister has to be leader of the majority party or a coalition of parties and commanding majority in the lower house. However, there cannot be a Prime Minister unless he is the leader of the majority party.
Since the Council of Ministers is not accountable to the President, it has to have support of the party or coalition of parties enjoying majority in the Lok Sabha. That’s why there is a convention that the party or coalition parties enjoying majority in the Lok Sabha should first elect a person as leader and the President should invite the leader to form the government.
In England, there is a well-established convention that the leader of the party claiming to form a government must first elect a leader. The same applies to the Indian Parliamentary system. After Nehru’s death, a healthy convention was sure to be developed by first appointing the senior most minister as the interim Prime Minister and appointment of regular Prime Minister only after the parliamentary party in majority elected its leader. The precedence was followed after Shastri’s death. There is no merit in Pranab Mukherjee’s argument that the idea of an interim Prime Minister was dropped in view of ‘an extraordinary situation when an incumbent Prime Minister had been assassinated.’
Giani Zail Singh was 100% wrong if he believed that he had power to appoint a person a feature as as Prime Minister. No President with the knowledge of the Indian Constitution should have said what Giani Zail Singh said and a strong President would have refused to appoint Rajiv Gandhi as regular Prime Minister.
The resolution of the CPB could not be a substitute of the resolution of the CPP.
All the Congress leaders and the President Giani Zail Singh acted in utter violation of the parliamentary system of government. Going by Mukherjee’s account, only the then Cabinet Secretary believed that what was being done was not correct but the Congress leaders simply ignored his advice.
Appointed in violation of the parliamentary system of government, Rajiv Gandhi served as Prime Minister for 5 years. No doubt, the CPP would have unanimously elected him leader but not waiting for that was constitutionally wrong.
The old-timers may recollect that in early 1969, the then Food and Agriculture Minister Jagjivan Ram’s failure to file his income tax returns for a few years had become news. There were wide speculations about how he defaulted, what action was taken against him, what was the role of the then Finance Minister, Morarji Desai and what was the reaction of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Recently I happened to read a few pages of a book ‘Milestones’ on the life of Jagjivan Ram (he died in 1986) by his wife Indrani Jagjivan Ram (she died in 2002). On page 231-32 of the book, published in 2010, she writes:
“In the middle of April (1969) Finance Minister Morarji Desai informed him that his income tax returns had not been filed for ten years. My husband was taken aback. Whatever money he received from the government….was after tax had been deducted. So how did this lapse occur? It also showed negligence on the part of the income tax department that no notice was sent to him. A chartered accountant looked after his finances. I thought that Morarji Desai had been jealous of my husband from the beginning; he was his political rival too. Was this a new trick to humiliate my husband?…. How was it possible that no query was sent for ten years? A person who had refused ministership in 1937 for the sake of the party and the nation, at a time when he had very little money, such a person could not even think of doing anything of this kind. Before forming an adverse judgement about such a person, his previous track record of conduct, sacrifice, dedication and patriotism should have been considered.
“My husband was hurt and ready to hand in his resignation – he did not want any blemish on his pristine carrier. His well-wishers stopped him. Indira Gandhi also asked him not to resign. The syndicate was opposing the progressive policies of the government and Congress. Morarji Desai was a prominent leader of the syndicate. If my husband resigned, it would have meant a boost for the syndicate. Indira Gandhi said that Jagjivan Ram had played an important role in her election as the Prime Minister and Morarji Desai had been displeased with him since then. She said that many other MPs had not filed their income tax returns.”
The passage in the book reminded me of an article, highly critical of Morarji Desai, written long ago by I. K. Gujral, much before he became Prime Minister. Gujral had written that as Finance Minister, Morarji Desai misused various investigating agencies under him and came to know that Jagjivan Ram had not filed his income tax returns for several years and created an embarrassing situation for his Cabinet colleague.
Out of curiosity, I took the help of Google to find what others have written on the subject. The search engine showed about 24,300 results to ‘Jagjivan Ram income tax’. Obviously, all these are not about his income tax nor could I read more than a few which appeared relevant. I found that according to those who have written on the subject, Jagjivan Ram had not paid his income tax or had not filed tax returns for 10 years and even more. An interesting piece of ‘information’ appears in the book “The Congress, Indira to Sonia Gandhi’ by Vijay Sanghvi. According to the author:
“Indira Gandhi also chose him for the candidature in the presidential election in 1969, but she could not push through her proposal at the Parliamentary board meeting. She was hesitant earlier to choose him as her candidate because of the tax problems that had enveloped Jagjivan Ram. Not only that he had not paid the income tax for years but had also not filed the mandatory Tax Returns. Indira Gandhi knew that Morarji Desai was sitting on the files as the finance minister.” (Page 255)
I cannot say whether at any stage Jagjivan Ram was Indira Gandhi’s choice for the post of President of India but I can say with full confidence that much of what these people have written is false. I am not saying that these persons were telling lies. A lie is something one tells deliberately to hide something or to mislead someone. But they were not speaking the truth, because they have written on the subject without knowing the truth. What could be the explanation of such writings, not true but sounding convincing because writers include Indrani Jagjivan Ram and I. K. Gujral?
Visualise a dramatic situation. You are sitting before a stage. You hear only noise: MPs making noise in the Parliament that Jagjivan Ram has not filed his IT returns for several years; people reading the news in newspapers and talking about it; in defence of Jagjivan Ram, a minister is heard telling MPs that he had ‘forgotten’ to file tax returns. Scene changes. Morarji Desai is seen ordering action against Jagjivan Ram who is sitting in a corner looking very upset. Morarji goes; Indira Gandhi appears. Someone asks her whether Jagjivan Ram had forgotten to file his tax returns. She says casually, ‘Yes, there was some such forgetfulness.’ Throughout, Jagjivan Ram himself does not say a word.
Those who have written had heard and seen only this much. They did not know how a question was raised in the Parliament. They guessed that Jagjivan Ram’s bete noire Morarji Desai must have been the man behind it, that when such an impropriety had been committed by a cabinet minister and Finance Minister was after his blood, he could have been saved only by the Prime Minister who needed his support in her battle against the Syndicate comprising Morarji Desai and others.
This is what happens when one is confident that his guess is true. The most surprising is what is written in ‘Memoirs’ by his wife. She too was totally ignorant and the person who wrote on her behalf or helped her write knew nothing.
There was only one person who knew everything, from how Jagjivan Ram’s default was detected and how the curtain fell on the drama. That person is still alive. He knows more than what even Jagjivan Ram knew. That person is none other than the author of this article.
In an earlier article “When high-level corruption in India had state patronage” (Oct 04, 2015), I had written that in 1968, I was given charge of an income tax ward which was a very sensitive charge because it had jurisdiction over most of the persons who mattered in the country. Out of over 5500 taxpayers, at least 500 were very powerful: President, Vice President, Prime Minister, most of the central ministers, ex-ministers, several MPs, judges of the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court, senior bureaucrats, officers of my own department posted in Delhi including my own bosses, etc. Anyone of them could create a problem for me, from an adverse entry in my annual records to transfer to the farthest corner of the country. My conscience would not allow me to do anything illegal or irregular under any pressure to please anyone or to win favour. At the same time, I could not be rash to unnecessarily rub anybody the wrong way. I had to be very cautious and diplomatic in dealing with such persons.
During the course of examination of pending cases, I discovered that while most of the persons including those considered powerful were quite regular when filing their tax returns and paying taxes over and above what had been deducted at source, some of the powerful persons were defaulters. Technically and legally I could issue a notice to each one of them but the risk was that some of them might have filed their returns elsewhere, for example in their own hometowns. One option was to ring up everyone to enquire but that was not likely to bring information which I could place on the record. I also gathered from the members of the staff some powerful persons were reluctant to give information and clarifications needed by the Department and believed in showing off.
Under these circumstances, I decided it would be better to give a strong signal to such people to take their income tax matters seriously. I adopted an unorthodox method which one can say was not expected of a civil servant. I called a Delhi Jan Sangh MP, Kanwar Lal Gupta, who was also an income tax practitioner, to my office. I shared the information with him and suggested that a Parliament question should be asked about the ministers and ex-ministers who had not filed their income tax returns for the current year and in the past. It was the biggest scoop for an MP in the Opposition. He sent a question to the Lok Sabha Secretariat for the reply.
Soon thereafter there was hue and cry. Finance Minister Morarji Desai and the officers of the Department of Revenue came to know of it. That such a question had been asked reached the press too. The question reached me through proper channel for preparation of the list of defaulters. The Commissioner of Income Tax (CIT), Delhi – at that time he was the senior most officer in the field – started getting phone calls from offices of ministers and ex-ministers for help in the preparation of income tax returns.
The preparation of reply was not an easy task because I was not sure that record-keeping was as perfect as it should be. I asked my office to check all the records to ensure that there was no mistake in the reply. I prepared the list of defaulters. The most important name was that of Jagjivan Ram. To safeguard myself, I wrote in the reply that the list had been prepared on the basis of the records available and that it was quite likely that some of them had filed their returns elsewhere.
One day Rameshwar Thakur, at that time a practising chartered accountant (years later, in June 1991, he became Minister of State for revenue in the Finance Ministry, then shifted to other ministries before being dropped in December 1994 and served as Governor of different states between 2004 and 2009), came to me to file income tax returns of Jagjivan Ram. As far as I collect, Jagjivan Ram had not filed the returns for the assessment year 1968-69 and three preceding years, not for 10 years as claimed by the people who have written on the subject. The return for the assessment year 1969-70 was within time. During the course of conversation, Rameshwar Thakur told me that a member of Jagjivan Ram’s staff used to look after his tax matters – it was confirmed by members of staff who had been working in the ward for several years – but after his foreign posting Jagjivan Ram did not assign the work to anyone and defaulted. Rameshwar Thakur was handling Jagjivan Ram’s personal income tax matters for the first time.
In response to the statutory notices issued to discuss the case with Jagjivan Ram or his legal representative, Rameshwar Thakur (who later became Minister of State for Finance) appeared. In addition to salary and allowances as Minister from which tax had been deducted at source, the only other income was interest of Rs. 15,000 or 20,000 per annum on fixed deposit with a private company. The source of the deposit was the maturity value of a life insurance policy. At that time there was no provision for deduction of tax at source from interest income. The scrutiny of bank accounts did not reveal anything incriminating. The Income Tax Act required that in addition to filing the income tax return every year within the prescribed time limit declaring income from all sources – returns had to be filed even if the only source of income was salary from which tax was deducted at source – he should pay advance tax and, if necessary, tax on the basis of self-assessment within 30 days of filing the return. Jagjivan Ram had violated all these provisions. Along with the assessment orders, I issued several notices to show cause why penalty should not be imposed on him for concealment of income (due to non-filing of return), for the delay in filing returns of income and for failure to pay advance tax. Jagjivan Ram had paid all the dues with interest after filing the returns in 1969 but that did not absolve him of violations of the law in the past.
In response to the penalty notices, Jagjivan Ram filed a petition before the CIT, Delhi for waiver of penalty under Section 273A of the Income Tax Act. According to the provisions Section 273A (1) as prevailing in 1969, the CIT had power “in his discretion, whether on his own motion or otherwise” to reduce or waive the penalty imposed or imposable on a person for all those offences for which penalty notices had been issued. The conditions for reduction or waiver of the amount of penalty were that the Commissioner “is satisfied that such a person”
(a) has filed the return of income voluntarily,
(b) has voluntarily made full and true disclosure of income and no concealment has been detected,
(c) has co-operated in any enquiry relating to the assessment of his income, and
(d) has either paid or make satisfactory arrangements for the payment of any tax and interest payable by him.
(CIT’s powers to reduce or waive penalty were significantly reduced by amendments to the Income Tax Act in 1986 and 1989.)
In my report to the CIT, I confirmed that Jagjivan Ram fulfilled all the above-mentioned conditions required for the waiver of penalty.
For the next 10 days or so I had to face the music. My CIT, I. P. Gupta (he is no more), known to be a very strict boss and hard taskmaster, was very fond of me and extended full support to me whenever I faced any problem. However, he was not happy with my report. The main issue was whether the returns filed by Jagjivan Ram could be treated as having been filed ‘voluntarily’. If the returns were not filed ‘voluntarily’, the fulfillment of other conditions was meaningless. According to my CIT and many others in the Department, Jagjivan Ram’s returns could not be treated as having been filed ‘voluntarily’ because he had done so after a Parliament question that made him aware of his default. On the other hand, my argument was that if a return of income filed because of Parliament question could not be treated as ‘voluntary’, no return filed even without any notice from the Department could be treated as ‘voluntary’; every person having taxable income filed tax return and paid taxes because of fear of law; the filing of income tax return and payment of tax could not be treated as a charitable act; if the payment of income tax was made voluntary, hardly anybody would pay. In my opinion, the Income Tax Act recognised only two situations: whether the return was filed in response to a statutory notice issued by the Department or without any statutory notice. Since the department had not issued any statutory notice to Jagjivan Ram, in the eyes of the law, the returns filed by him had to be treated as ‘voluntary’.
After a lot of discussion in the Department, my interpretation was accepted but that did not end the Commissioner’s problem. It was difficult for him to reject Jagjivan Ram’s application because in several similar cases the department had waived the penalty. At the same time, because of political overtones, it was not easy for the Commissioner to treat this case as a routine one.
Finance Minister Morarji Desai was keenly monitoring the progress of the case. As ordered by him, Commissioner sent a report in which he mentioned all the developments in the case: Jagjivan Ram had filed all the pending income tax returns and had paid taxes due; income declared by him in each year had been accepted, income tax assessments had been completed and orders passed and penalty notices had been issued; Jagjivan Ram had submitted a petition for waiver of penalty; the assessing officer had sent a report that the assessee fulfilled all the conditions for the waiver of penalty.
Morarji Desai got wild when he read the report. He gave two orders in writing: (a) impose maximum penalty on Jagjivan Ram and (b) take disciplinary action against the assessing officer for suggesting that Jagjivan Ram had fulfilled all the conditions for the waiver of penalty. I was summoned by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and shown the Finance Minister’s order. I was told that the Finance Minister was very angry with me. The CBDT and my CIT were very upset and feeling very sorry for me. My immediate reaction was that unwittingly Finance Minister had done a great to favour to Jagjivan Ram because after what he had ordered in writing, it was impossible to impose any penalty on Jagjivan Ram. My reasoning was that the Finance Minister had absolutely no legal power under the Income Tax Act to give any order and that if a penalty was imposed after this order, it would be struck down by appellate authorities in no time. I even said that if Jagjivan Ram filed a writ petition in the High Court that the Finance Minister was interfering in a quasi-judicial process, he (Finance Minister) would be in trouble.
In my opinion – I could not say that before my seniors – Morarji Desai was a very arrogant as well as an ignorant person. Perhaps, he believed that all the legal and executive powers vested in the mandarins of his Ministry were vested in him too because he was the Minister. He had neither knowledge of law nor common sense but believed that he had all the powers to give any order to his subordinates.
The CIT did not implement the Finance Minister’s order. Jagjivan Ram’s petition was accepted and all penalties were waived.
After some time, a parliamentary committee raised this question. A member of the committee asked the then Finance Secretary whether the Finance Minister had issued an order to impose a penalty on Jagjivan Ram. Finance Secretary denied the existence of any such order. The file in which Morarji Desai had given the order had vanished in thin air. Later, Morarji Desai himself was forced to resign from the government for conspiring against Indira Gandhi.
It is absolutely wrong to say, as some people claim, that Moraji Desai was sitting over the file while others were waiting for his order. In fact, he was in a great hurry to see that penalty was imposed on Jagjivan Ram.
In the entire drama Indira Gandhi’s only role was that in reply to a question by a journalist whether Jagjivan Ram had ‘forgotten’ to file his income tax returns, she had said that ‘there was some such forgetfulness.’
After that episode, not only Jagjivan Ram but several other powerful persons also became regular and cooperative, not all though. A few defaulters, including a prominent socialist leader who had served as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, continued to be defiant. During the course of telephonic conversation, the great socialist leader shouted at me and said that he would not file income tax returns because he owed nothing to the government. Later, he was in serious trouble because he was quite a rich person with taxable income as well as wealth but had not bothered to pay his taxes for several years. Unfortunately, I could not get the opportunity to deal with his case because by that time I had gone to the Planning Commission as deputy secretary.
The moral of the story is that if the truth is not public knowledge, it is very easy to distort history and mislead people. If falsehood can be spread about what has happened during our lifetime, what is the guarantee that what has been written as history is true?
Arvind Kejriwal is suffering from serious ‘anxiety disorder’, especially Foniasophobia (fear of being murdered).
His well-wishers should immediately take him to a psychiatrist. I am making this suggestion quite seriously. He has shown symptoms several times. On May 5 also he said slap on his face was part of Modi’s conspiracy to eliminate him.
May 5, 2019: Kejriwal slapped by a member of public After the incident, he said in a press conference that Modi had sent the attacker to eliminate him
May 6, 2019: On Monday Arvind Kejriwal accused that Modi was a fake nationalist who ‘got an elected CM of a state attacked’ and was using ‘Rafale money money’ to buy a AP MLAs.
He demanded Prime Minister’s resignation for attack on him.
This is not the normal reaction of a politician. A ‘slap’ cannot kill anyone. Had the species called ‘human’ been so fragile that a slap would kill, there would have been no human population. Slapping a child or even a grown-up boy or girl is quite common. Also, when humans fight, slapping is quite common.
Nothing serious happened to Arvind after he was slapped. He is quite hale and hearty. Only thing that happened worth noting is that we got one more example of the stupidity of this man who thinks that but for Narendra Modi he would have become Prime Minister.
That is why I say that Arvind Kejriwal is suffering from serious ‘anxiety disorder’, especially Foniasophobia (fear of being murdered)