14. K Natwar Singh. {of Iraqi oil scam } : - (Majority Bharatiya politicians are corrupt, and their transactions are scandals, since Independence to till this day, Congress leading in this, others to follow!!! except few good Characters!)

K Natwar Singh.  {of Iraqi oil scam }

Opinion
30/03/2016.
     397.

      All Members,
     Respected family members of this great holy Nation.

   Sub : Majority Bharatiya politicians are corrupt, and their transactions are scandals, since Independence  to till  this  day, Congress leading in this, others to follow!!! except few good Characters!

 Ref : 14. K Natwar Singh.  {of Iraqi oil scam }

K. Natwar Singh

Introduction :
Minister of External Affairs of India
In office :  22 May 2004 – 6 December 2005
Preceded by Yashwant Sinha
Succeeded by Manmohan Singh
Personal details :
Born : 16 May 1931 (age 84)  Jaghina, Bharatpur, Bharatpur State, British Raj (present-day Rajasthan, India)
Political party : Indian National Congress
Spouse(s) : Heminder Kaur
Residence : New Delhi

Kunwar Natwar Singh (born 16 May 1931) is an Indian politician, a former senior bureaucrat, a former Union cabinet minister, and a writer.

Singh was selected into the Indian Foreign Service, one of the most competitive and prestigious government services, in 1953.

In 1984, he resigned from the service to contest elections as a member of the Indian National Congress party.

He won the election and served as a union minister of state until 1989.

 

 

Thereafter, he had a patchy political career until being made India's foreign minister in 2004.

However, 18 months later, he had to resign under a cloud after the UN's Volcker committee named both him and the Congress party to which he belonged as beneficieries of illegal payoffs in the Iraqi oil scam.

Oil for Food scandal :

Singh assumed office on 23 May 2004 as India's minister for external affairs. His tenure proved controversial.
On 27 October 2005, while Singh was abroad on an official visit, the Independent Inquiry Committee headed by Paul Volcker released the report on its investigation of corruption in the Oil-for-Food program.
It stated inter alia that "India's Congress party" and Natwar Singh's family were non-contractual (corrupt) beneficiaries of the Oil for Food programme.

The report stated that Natwar Singh, his son Jagat Singh and Jagat's childhood friend Andaleeb Sehgal, were associated with a company called Hamdan Exports, which acted as an intermediary for illegal sales of oil to a Swiss firm named Masefield AG.

In return for these illegal sales, Masefield paid kickbacks, (termed "surcharges") partly to Saddam Hussein's regime and partly to Natwar Singh and others.

It was alleged that such kickbacks were Hussein's way of securing support from politicians around the world and that this benefit influenced Natwar Singh to lobby against US policies in Iraq (in particular, US sanctions on Saddam Hussein).

This scandal represented a serious crisis for the ruling coalition, because the implication was that the Congress party, which had been away from power for nearly a decade, had indulged in international corruption to replenish its coffers and fight elections.

Natwar Singh's closeness to Sonia Gandhi was well-known, and it was generally surmised that he had acted as a front for that family and the party.

A need was felt for the party (and ruling family) to distance itself from Natwar Singh, and also to find a scapegoat to whom the blame could be transferred, so that party and family alike could proclaim themselves clean.
 A convenient occasion was supplied by Anil Mathrani, then Indian Ambassador to Croatia and formerly a close aide to Natwar Singh, who alleged that Natwar Singh had used an official visit to Iraq to procure oil coupons for Jagat Singh from Saddam's regime.

The long knives :

When Mathrani made this allegation, Natwar Singh was on a flight returning from an official visit abroad.
The Congress party struck before he landed in New Delhi.

Party spokeswoman Ambika Soni, another close confidante of Sonia Gandhi, told a press gathering that the statement indicated the innocence of the Congress party, and that Natwar Singh would make his defence on the subject "as an individual," separately.

He was given no chance to present a case, or even to speak to Sonia Gandhi, whom he had known personally for four decades and whose cause he had championed since the first day of her political career.

On 6 December 2005, shortly after he landed in Delhi from his foreign visit, Singh was told that he had been relieved (for the time being, until his name could be cleared) of his portfolio and that he was no longer Minister for External Affairs.

Interestingly, he was retained as a minister-without-portfolio.

On 26 March 2006, the Indian Enforcement Directorate (ED) announced that it had finally tracked a sum of eighty million rupees, transferred from London-based Non-resident Indian businessman Aditya Khanna's bank account to his own NRI account in a Delhi bank, and later withdrawn from this account to be allegedly distributed among Indian beneficiaries of the scam.

 An old family connection between this businessman (Aditya Khanna) and Natwar Singh's family was dredged up. In August the same year, the Justice Pathak committee, which was investigating the case, released its judgment accepting this averment.

The committee found that Andaleeb Sehgal, a friend of Jagat Singh, and Aditya Khanna, a relative of Natwar Singh, received financial payoffs by procuring oil coupons based on recommendations given by Natwar Singh.

Importantly, the committee found that there was no evidence linking the Congress party with these dealings. Based on this credible report, Jagat Singh was expelled from the primary membership of the Congress party, Natwar Singh was dismissed from the Cabinet and his party membership was suspended.

Natwar Singh then resigned from the Congress party. He announced his resignation at a Bharatiya Janata Party-sponsored rally of Natwar Singh's own Jat community held at Jaipur in the presence of Vasundhara Raje, then Chief Minister of Rajasthan. On this occasion, Natwar Singh not only asserted his innocence but also launched a bitter attack on Sonia Gandhi for having failed to defend or support him.

However, Natwar Singh did not join the BJP. Instead, in mid-2008, both Singh and his son Jagat joined Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party, only to be expelled by that party within four months (in November 2008) for alleged indiscipline, anti-party activities and "lack of faith" in the ideology of the Bahujan Samaj Movement.

In fact, Singh had been demanding a Rajya Sabha seat (which had apparently been promised before he joined the party) and Mayawati had changed her mind on that matter.

After this episode, Natwar Singh, now 77 years of age, and having suffered several personal tragedies in a short period, retired from public life.

END
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