By IANS
New Delhi : The Delhi High Court Thursday dismissed the pleas of former external affairs minister Natwar Singh and his son Jagat Singh for directions to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to provide them all documents related to Iraq's oil-for-food scam.
Rejecting the demand by the father-son duo, Justice B.D. Ahmed held that the various Supreme Court rulings stipulate that only those documents that have been relied upon by an investigative agency for taking action against the accused would be supplied to them.
"In the light of the Supreme Court judgments, I cannot hold otherwise," Justice Ahmed said. "Let's hope that law further develops on the issue."
The senior Singh's name had figured as an alleged beneficiary in the UN Volcker Committee report on the world body's oil-for-food programme in Iraq, which had degenerated into a scam with many influential people across the world befitting from it. Singh had to quit the cabinet following the allegations.
Natwar Singh and son Jagat had been seeking all the documents on the grounds that some could be beneficial to them in putting their case before the authority.
"The ED cannot be selective in providing the documents. It has excluded the host of documents and deliberately chosen others to prosecute my clients," Singh's counsel Nigam had contended May 1 during arguments on his clients' petitions.
Additional Solicitor General P.P. Malhotra, however, had objected to the demand for the documents from the father-son duo saying the ED had supplied all those documents on which it relied upon while issuing a show cause notice to them.
The Indian government had constituted the Justice Pathak Inquiry Authority to probe the matter after Natwar Singh's name figured in the Volcker report. It had also procured from the world body documents that formed the basis of the report.
Subsequently, after the Justice Pathak Inquiry Authority submitted its report to the government, the ED launched a probe against Singh and his son, amongst others, for alleged violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act as alleged beneficiaries of the oil-for-food scam in Iraq.
The father-son duo had subsequently moved court demanding all the documents, related to Iraq's oil-for-food scam, which had been procured by the government from the United Nations.