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New Delhi: The Justice Pathak Inquiry Authority probing the Oil-for-Food scam, has indicted former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and his son Jagat Singh for misusing their powers, but has not found evidence of any money trail linking them. However, in its report submitted to Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh here today, the Pathak panel gave a clean chit to the Congress party. According to sources, the report says that Natwar Singh had written three letters to the former Iraqi Oil Minister in which he introduced Jagat's friend Andaleeb Sehgal to the minister. Meanwhile, Natwar Singh refused to say anything on the matter. His advocate said that the former minister would talk only after reading the report. The controversy over Oil-for-food payoff erupted in October last year, when a former UN diplomat Paul Volcker wrote in his report that politicians in several countries, including Natwar Singh, were given oil vouchers that could be sold for a commission to help the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his attempts to get sanctions lifted. Following this, Natwar resigned from the ministry on November 7. Later, the Union Cabinet appointed a retired Supreme Court Justice RS Pathak for enquiry into the matter. The Congress-led government had, since the report became public, been battling furious protests by Opposition parties, which had accused it of harbouring corrupt politicians. Natwar, who was the first political casualty of the explosive report, had however, termed the allegations as "outrageous". The oil-for-food program, which began in 1996 and ended in 2003, aimed to ease the impact on ordinary Iraqis of U.N. sanctions, imposed when Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait in 1990. Under the scheme, Iraq was allowed to sell oil to buy food, medicine and many other goods. The UN report said that some 2,200 companies made illicit payments totalling 1.8 billion dollars to Saddam's government under the programme. |
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