by Sachi Sri Kantha; published May 12, 2004
Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Investigation: MDMA and the ‘Merry Go Round Politics’ of the Post-Supreme Court Phase
Has anyone bothered to keep a score on the long-running theatrical farce involving the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) and the ‘Merry Go Round’ politics and progress of the post-Supreme Court phase of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination investigation? I have. The three Supreme Court Justices [Justice D.P.Wadhwa, Justice K.T.Thomas and Justice S.M.Qadri] delivered their judgement on May 11, 1999. That was in the 20th century. I presented my extensive analysis on the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, as a segment of my Pirabhakaran Phenomenon series, from part 25 [posted on Dec.1, 2001] to part 36 [posted on June 13, 2002] in the Sangam website.http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/index.htm
Rajiv Gandhi in Sriperumbudur, 21 May 1991
As an aside, I also note that it is somewhat flattering and, at the same time, mildly irritating that some components of my assassination analysis have been copied and circulated in the web, without any proper acknowledgment to the author. One who had shamelessly cribbed sections of my analysis [including words and phrases!] without due acknowledgment to the source is none other than my elderly kin Mr.K.T.Rajasingham [vide, his ‘Chapter 47: Questions over Gandhi’s Killing,’ in his series Sri Lanka: The Untold Story, appearing in the Asia Times website http://www.atimes.com, posted on July 6, 2002.]
Now five years have passed since the Supreme Court Appeal judgment on the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case was delivered. For those who are interested in what is happening in the long-running theatrical farce involving the Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA), the ‘Merry Go Round’ of Indian politics and the tardy progress of the post-Supreme Court phase of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination investigation, here is a summary. A few of the revelations are worthy of entries into an anthology on bureaucratic and political humor in India.
First, the MDMA had sent “27 letters of Rogatories in June 2000 to all over the world capitals to know the funding sources of the banned Sri Lankan militant outfit LTTE found responsible for the assassination as MDMA is supposed to find out who was actually behind this assassination.” [see below, item 8]. But the response for such bureaucratic grandstanding by Indian Poo Bahs was abysmal. By the end of January 2002 [i.e., after 19 months], “Only six of the 27 countries have bothered to acknowledge the legal notices till last month, while others did not even take the cognizance.”
Secondly, the RAW representative of the MDMA “died in 1999 and since then no successor has been appointed,” as of February 2002. [see below, item 8] Could it be that the bigwigs of the notorious spooks office may have thought that the navigating ghost of the dead RAW representative would suffice to represent their agency!
Thirdly, by February 2003, the result was: “Though the MDMA is yet to complete the investigation into Rajiv Gandhi’s murder, its staff strength has been reduced because there is hardly any work.” [see below, item 8]. Isn’t this neat? The MDMA, having suffered credibility problems at the international front with officials of the majority of other nations not even responding to the ‘letters of Rogatories’ in its ‘much hyped’ pursuit of the LTTE’s international financial operations, is now being kept like a patient in an intensive care unit, with political tubes hanging from the nose, mouth and throat. I congratulate the unknown officials of those nations who rebuffed the ‘letters of Rogatories’ from Indian Poo Bahs. They would have easily sensed that these ‘bureaucratic’ letters of rogatories were nothing but slick solicitation pleas for foreign jaunts on taxpayers’ money by the Indian officials who were on the verge of their retirement!
Fourthly, an irony is that Mr.Vazhapadi Ramamurthi [a loud mouth – bit player in Tamil Nadu politics, who projected himself as the foremost Rajiv Gandhi loyalist] who pleaded with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee ‘not to recommend clemency for any of the four [accused] sentenced to death for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi’ himself departed to meet his Maker, ahead of the four accused whom he was keen on seeing dead [see below, item 5]. Mr.Vazhapadi Koothapadayachi Ramamurthy suffered a cardiac arrest and died on October 27, 2002; he was aged 62.
Fifthly, the Congress Party pulled the rug of I.J.Gujral’s minority government by withdrawing its support in the parliament in 1998, on the issue that the DMK, which was a constituent of Gujral’s Cabinet, was strongly implicated with Rajiv Gandhi assassination by the Jain Commission. Now, in 2004, the same Congress Party is in cahoots with DMK for electoral politics. Similarly, the ever-petulant and unpredictable Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha (of AIDMK) was posturing much on Pirabhakaran’s non-extradition to India with L.K.Advani, the Deputy Prime Minister, in 2000. Now, in 2004, the same Jayalalitha is holding hands with Mr.Advani’s party for political merry-go-round. And Jayalalitha has also been seen shedding public tears for Rajiv Gandhi’s memories – outsmarting the late Indian prime minister’s Italian wife [see below, item 16]. Sonia Gandhi shouldn’t be surprised that Jeyalalitha, afterall, was an ex-actress who could generate tears at the sound of a clap-board. If Sonia Gandhi is to remain in the center stage of Indian politics, it wouldn’t be a bad idea if she signs a contract with a pro like Sophia Loren, from her native land, as an acting consultant.
I provide below, in chronological sequence, sixteen infrequent news reports which I had tracked from the Indian news websites, beginning from May 19, 1999 to March 23, 2004.
(1) by Jal Khambata/ dated May 19, 1999 [MDMA to interrogate Ranganathan. source: http://www.jalnews.com]
Ranganathan, an accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case freed by the Supreme Court last week, is most likely to be examined in Bangalore next week by the Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) set up by the Centre to follow up the Jain Commission’s findings on the assassination conspiracy. The MDMA has taken very seriously his claim after the release to disclose names of all personalities and financiers involved in the conspiracy and as such its chairman Rajendra Kaul will be personally interviewing him in Bangalore, the CBI sources disclosed.
Responding to the Congress Working Committee (CWC) resolution last Saturday to provide protection to Ranganathan lest he is also mysteriously bumped off like many other witnesses, the MDMA has already asked the Karnataka Government to take care. Kaul, who is a CBI Joint Director coordinating with various agencies involved in the MDMA, will be visiting Bangalore and Chennai next week to gather more intelligence reports on movements of Sivarasan and Ranganathan. The Jain Commission had already pointed the needle of suspicion on self-styled Godman Chandraswami warranting further action by the MDMA and as such Kaul wants to gather more information from Ranganathan who has gone on record accusing Chandraswami of being privy to the assassination conspiracy.
The MDMA is preparing a detailed questionnaire to be issued early July to both Chandraswamy and K.Padmanabhan who had allegedly laundered Saudi Arabian arms dealer Adnan Khashogi’s money to LTTE responsible for assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. The 45 member MDMA is taking its time in starting its investigations since it requires study of tonnes of documents that have been prepared in the assassination case. It chairman Kaul is right now busy analysing, reading and discussing with the MDMA colleagues various points contained in the 22 volumes of the Jain Commission’s report, two volumes of Justice Verma Commission report, 44 volumes of the CBI’s Special Investigation Team report which led to sentences to the assassins as also the Supreme Court judgment. Though Kaul has set up a separate office of the MDMA in the Vigyan Bhawan here, he continues to operate from the CBI headquarters in the CGO Complex here. His staff says the space allotted in the Vigyan Bhawan was too little and as such the government has been approached to ease the accomodation problem.
(2) PTI news report/ datelined Chennai, Oct.15, 1999 [Indian Express, Oct.16, 1999]
The trial court in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case today fixed November 5 for the hanging of the four convicts sentenced to death, but jail authorities said they would not carry out the execution till the disposal of their expected mercy petitions addressed to the President. The designated Court-I confirmed the four black warrants issued against Murugan, Nalini, Santhan and Perarivalan, following the rejection of their review petitions by the Supreme Court, and ordered their hanging on November 5, Prison Department sources said.
However, with their lawyer expected to send in mercy petitions on their behalf in a day or two, the Prison Superintendent would be in no hurry to carry out the execution, the sources said. The court was only following routine procedure by fixing a date on receiving the apex court order rejecting the review petitions, the sources said. Normally, as soon as a mercy petition was sent, the Jail Superintendent himself would stay the execution for a week. Thereafter, the Government would extend the stay indefinitely, until the President disposed of the matter, officials said.
N.Chandrasekaran, defence counsel, said he would go to Vellore Prison tomorrow to take the signatures of the accused on the mercy petitions. However, it is not yet clear whether all of them are going to sign them. All 26 persons sent for trial in the case were sentenced to death by the trial court on January 28, 1998, but the Supreme Court, on May 11, confirmed only four of them. Three others had their sentences commuted to life, and the remaining 19 were acquitted of involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate the former prime minister on May 21, 1991. They were convicted for minor offences, but were either released or sent off to special camps for Sri Lankans, as they had undergone their prison terms during the trial. On October 8, the apex court, by a majority of 2-1, rejected review petitions filed on behalf of the four condemned prisoners.
(3) by Jal Khambata/ dated November 17, 1999.[Clemency to Rajiv killers: President puts onus on Govt. source: http://www.jalnews.com]
President K.R.Narayanan is understood to have put the onus on the Vajpayee Government to decide the clemency sought for four convicted to death sentence for conspiring and killing former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi eight years ago. He has been flooded with almost 2,500 mercy petitions calling upon him to convert the death sentence imposed on the four activists of the Sri Lankan militant organisation, LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), into the life imprisonment as already done by the Supreme Court in case of three other convicts. The Rashtrapati Bhawan Secretariat has forwarded all these petitions to the Home Ministry, seeking the Government’s opinion. Sources in the Home Ministry said all these petitions have been clubbed together and a brief is ready for being placed before the Union Cabinet for a decision to be conveyed to the President.
Among the petitioners seeking clemency from the President are former Supreme Court Judge V.R.Krishna Iyer, a former Director-General of Police of Tamil Nadu, PUCL and numerous other civil liberty organisations, citing instances the world over where the suspected killers were pardoned and granted life sentences. The sentence to death has been awarded to the four LTTE activists under Section 120-B (conspiracy), read with Section 320 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Prime Miniser Atal Bihari Vajpayee has been put in a fix as half a dozen Union Ministers, led by legal luminary and Law Minister Ram Jethmalani, have recommended to him that the sentences imposed on the four LTTE activists be converted into the life imprisonment. Among them are Manohar Joshi belonging to Shiv Sena and Murasoli Maran belonging to DMK. Since Congress is very sensitive about the killing of Rajiv Gandhi, the Prime Minister may have to weigh the political implications of any kind of clemency to those convicted for his killing. Jethmalani, however, is understood to have told him that the killers like Dhanu, the woman human bomb, and Sivarajan, the chief of the assassination squad, are all dead and those ordered to be hanged are not the actual killers but held guilty of conspiracy hatched to strike terror by killing the former Prime Minister. The Government may, however, find the legal difficulty in reducing the death sentence to life imprisonment since it would amount to reversal of the stand it had taken before the Supreme Court by opposing the review petition which was dismissed on October 4.
It may be mentioned here that the trial court in Chennai had sentenced 26 persons in January last year for hatching the conspiracy that led to assassination of Rajiv Gandhi at Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991, but the Supreme Court set free 19 of them who had already undergone sentences for other offences while confirming death sentence on four and converting it to life imprisonment in case of the remaining three. Those awaiting gallows unless they get the President’s pardon are husband and wife, N.Sridharan Murugan and Nalini who gave birth to a baby child while in custody, Santhan and G.Perarivalan alias Arivu, all hardcore activists of LTTE.
In the Supreme Court, Justice K.T.Thomas gave a dissenting judgment converting sentence passed on Nalini into the life imprisonment to save her child from ‘imposed orphanhood’ since her husband was also to be hanged. The 3-judge Bench, which included Justice D.P.Wadhwa and Justice Syed Mohd Quadri, however, dismissed the petition of the four convicts by a 2-1 majority, seeking review of its judgment of May 11, sentencing them to death for participation in the conspiracy to murder Rajiv Gandhi. All four were to be hanged in the Central Prison of Vellore (Tamil Nadu), where they are lodged, early this month, but their hanging was put off since they had sought the Presidential mercy. Senior advocate N.Natarajan, who appeared for the four convicts, said the Supreme Court was being moved to stay the death sentence until the President acts on their mercy petitions.
(4) by Jal Khambata/ dated Nov.18, 1999 [Sonia wants clemency for the lady convict in Rajiv assassination case. Source: http://www.jalnews.com]
Congress President Sonia Gandhi was quoted on Thursday saying that neither she nor her son or daughter would like hanging of any of the four convicted for assassination of her husband and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Former National Women Commission chairperson Mohini Giri told reporters that Sonia Gandhi also told her that she had already communicated to President K.R.Narayanan to commute the death sentence of Nalini, one of the four convicts, into life imprisonment. Congress spokesman Ajit Jogi, when shown an agency report of Mohini Giri’s press conference, he said he had no personal knowledge about Sonia Gandhi’s views and hence he would verify and let it be known on Friday.
Mohini Giri said she had called on Sonia Gandhi last week to plead the case of Nalini since her hanging would orphan her 8-year old daughter born in the custody as also among those sentenced was her husband N.Sridharan Murugan. She quoted Sonia Gandhi agrees with her that ‘no child should be orphaned by an act of the state.’ It may be mentioned here that the President has been deluged with mercy petitions by the four convicts and many others, including former Supreme Court judge V.R.Krishna Iyer to commute the death sentence of Murugan, Nalini, Santhan and G.Perarivalan, all hardcore activists of LTTE, into life imprisonment. Narayanan has forwarded all the petitions to the Government for its opinion. The four has been sentenced to death under Section 120-B (conspiracy), read with Section 320 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) while the Supreme Court had changed the sentence of three other convicts into life imprisonment.
(5) by Jal Khambata/ dated Nov.22, 1999 [Arjun Singh’s salvo at Sonia’s recommendation for clemency to Rajiv killer. Source: http://www.jalnews.com]
Congress Working Committee member Arjun Singh is understood to have sent a two-page letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi from London, expressing his anguish at the media reports that she wants clemency for Nalini, one of the conspirators sentenced to death in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. She should have taken the CWC into confidence before announcing her decision since the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi was not a personal matter but concerns all Congresssmen who want still further inquiry to nab those behind the conspiracy, Singh said in a letter faxed to 10 Janpath from London, where he is undergoing medical treatment.
There is, however, no tone of protest in the letter, as he says the AICC spokesman has already confirmed former National Women Commission chairperson Mohini Giri’s statement on Sonia Gandhi’s stand on pardon to Nalini and hence ‘I have no other option but to agree, but with great constraint.’ It may be mentioned here that Sonia Gandhi has urged President K.R.Narayanan to commute the death sentence of Nalini, who is one of the four sentenced to death for conspiracy in killing Rajiv Gandhi, into life imprisonment so that her 8-year old daughter does not become a ‘destitute’.
Arjun Singh’s anguish can be understood from the fact that he had once resigned from the government and the Congress only on the issue of then Prime Minister P.V.Narasimha Rao allegedly trying to protect the self-styled godman Chandraswamy, a suspect in the conspiracy hatched to kill Rajiv Gandhi. It was again Arjun Singh who keeps moving resolutions at every party forum to press for continuation of the inquiries that lead to exposure of the real brains behind the conspiracy. Meanwhile, another Rajiv loyalist Vazhaipadi Ramamurthy, who broke away from the Congress to float Tamil Rajiv Congress, met Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to plead with him not to recommend clemency for any of the four sentenced to death for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. ‘Let the law be allowed to take its own course without any kind of interference’, Ramamurthy impressed upon Vajpayee while stressing that the President would have no alternative but to go by the death sentence twice confirmed by the Supreme Court if the Government does not make any recommendation.
(6) by Jal Khambata/ dated August 25, 2000 [Arjun Singh may be questioned in Rajiv Gandhi assassination conspiracy case. source: http://www.jalnews.com]
Senior Congress leader Arjun Singh, Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh, may be interrogated by the CBI-led Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) investigating the conspiracy angle to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. The MDMA is supposed to investigate only the angles that were pointed out in the report of the Jain Inquiry Commission, pointing fingers among others at Tantrik Chandra Swami and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi.
Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani has, however, written to Janata Party chief Dr.Subramanian Swamy that he would get examined his charges against Arjun Singh and find out if it were a fit case to be referred to MDMA. Dr.Swamy claims he has provided extra evidences, which had not come up before the Jain Commission, in a 5-page letter he wrote to Advani last week. Dr.Swamy’s charge is that Arjun Singh and his friends had influenced the Jain Commission and they were trying to scuttle the probe being carried out by the MDMA.
Whether his contention is right or wrong cannot be ascertained, but contrary to his claims Arjun Singh himself raised the MDMA probe issue in the Rajya Sabha on Friday and wanted to know reasons for delay in completion of the probe which would expose the conspirators behind Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. It may be mentioned here that MDMA was constituted by the Vajpayee Government 20 months ago on December 2, 1998 and Dr.Swamy happens to be among the persons already identified by it for questioning.
Contrary to Arjun Singh’s charge that MDMA was sitting tight without any progress on the inquiry front, the MDMA has covered lot of ground left out by Justice Jain in his inquiry and its chief R.N.Kaul, who is a director in CBI, is to leave for Colombo on September 8 for interaction with the Sri Lankan authorities to know more about the LTTE, who had bombed off Rajiv Gandhi. Since it is claimed that the conspiracy to kill Rajiv Gandhi was hatched in the forests of the northeastern provinces of Sri Lanka, Kaul may also seek the Sri Lankan authorities to visit the place, the CBI sources said.
(7) by Nirupama Subramanian/ [MDMA did not discuss Prabhakaran extradition; The Hindu, Chennai, December 4, 2000]
The Attorney General of Sri Lanka, Mr.K.C.Kamalasabeyson, has said the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) team that was here last month did not raise extradition of the LTTE leader, Mr.Velupillai Prabhakaran. Mr.Kamalasabeyson told the Sunday Leader that the Indian team wanted to interrogate an LTTE suspect, Nixon, who is in custody here and was allegedly involved in the conspiracy to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi.
Though permission was refused, the Attorney General obtained a court order permitting Sri Lanka’s CID to interrogate him and record his statement in the presence of the MDMA team. The MDMA was set up by the Home Ministry in 1998 to follow up leads that were said to have emerged from the Jain Commission of Inquiry into the Rajiv Gandhi assassination. The Home Minister Mr.L.K.Advani’s statement in parliament last week that the MDMA was in Sri Lanka to press for the extradition of Mr.Prabhakaran has already had its impact.
In an interview to the state-owned Tamil daily Thinakaran, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mr.Ratnasiri Wickramanayake, who has made it clear that the war against the LTTE would be continued till it came into the democratic mainstream said, ‘When a fugitive wants to talk peace, it would be the priority of the Government to think on those lines rather than act to extradite him.’ Another report in the Sunday Times, quoting official sources, said the mission of the visiting team was to gather evidence on the links of Tamil Nadu politicians with the LTTE.
(8) by Jal Khambata/ dated February 22, 2002. [Rajiv Gandhi assassination inquiry derails. source: http://www.jalnews.com]
The inquiry into the conspiracy angle to the assasination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has derailed as a joint agency constituted subsequent to the Jain Inquiry Commission had reached a deadend with no progress achieved in past over three years and it is even lying headless since last two months. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which basically coordinates the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) set up by the Government on December 2 for a follow-up of the Jain report, wants it to be wound up. The CBI sources said the CBI would not seek further extension of MDMA and in fact its directorate is now busy preparing a final report to be filed with the designated court of CBI which has already sentenced the assassination culprits.
Of course, the CBI dare not ask for closing the inquiry without coming to any final conclusion as such a request is fraught with political problems to the government and therefore the CBI would move the Government in a month or so to consider merging the MDMA into the CBI. Nothing is moving in MDMA. There were 27 letters of Rogatories sent in June 2000 to all over the world capitals to know the funding sources of the banned Sri Lankan militant outfit LTTE found responsible for the assassination as MDMA is supposed to find out who was actually behind this assassination.
The Jain Commission raised accusing fingers at Tantrik Chandraswami, former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi and others but it did not come to any conclusion saying it did not have time and the machinery to spread the net of investigation worldwide. The letters of Rogatories were also sent to ascertain the weaponaries obtained by LTTE to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi. Only six of the 27 countries have bothered to acknowledge the legal notices till last month, while others did not even take the cognizance. The MDMA which was constituted after Action Taken Report (ATR) tabled in Parliament on Justice Jain Commission’s findings has been filing reports with the designated CBI court in Chennai which is monitoring progress of the assassination case.
The first chairman of the MDMA was relieved from CBI within three months of its constitution for reverting him to his parent cadre while R.N.Kaul heading the agency has since retired in December and no successor has been appointed. Last month, the MDMA also underwent a quiet, unpublicized downsizing of the staff while some more persons representing various other departments and agencies may be also relieved of the responsibility, the sources revealed. At the time of its constitution, the MDMA controlled by the CBI had on it the representatives from Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), Central Board of Direct Taxes, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence. There were also some forensic and bomb experts drawn from Army and also from National Security Guards.
The RAW representative died in 1999 and since then no successor has been appointed. Similarly the RBI representative is not attending the meetings as his job is essential only once the Letters of Rogatories are replied as he is supposed to analyse the funding sources of LTTE. As of now there are 18 senior officers of the CBI who constitute MDMA, with an IG rank officer as an acting Chairman, and two DIGs, four Superintendents of Police, eight Deputy Superintendents of Police rank and three Inspectors.
(9) News report from Times of India, May 11, 2002.
Union Home Minister L.K.Advani on Friday told the Parliamentary Consultative Committee…the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA), constituted to examine the unanswered questions about the assassination and doubts raised by the Jain Commission which had probed the case, would continue its work. ‘The term of the monitoring agency expires on May 31, but the government had decided to extend it for one more year’, Advani said.
(10) N.Sathiya Moorthy/ dated May 22, 2002 [Eleven years: Rajiv assassination case still drags on. http://www.Rediff.com.news.com]
A full 11 years after the former Indian prime minister’s assassination the much-publicised ‘Rajiv Gandhi assassination case’ remains incomplete on all fronts. Nearly three years after the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence on four of the 26 accused, no action has been taken on their mercy petitions pending before the President. Providing a twist to the case is the Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s plea for clemency for Nalini – fourth accused in the case – after the Supreme Court gave a death sentence to her. Gandhi reasoned that Nalini has a young daughter, born inside the jail, to take care of. The death sentence given to the other three accused- Murugan, the boyfriend turned husband of Nalini; ‘Chinna’ Santhan and Perarivalan – have been confirmed by the apex court.
For the third shocking assassination of its kind in free India, the Rajiv case has dragged on longer than the other two. In the Mahatma Gandhi assassination case the killers – Vinayak Nathu Ram Godse and others – were executed after their appeals were turned down by the Supreme Court in November 1949, less than two years after the assassination. Likewise, the Supreme Court had confirmed the death sentence of Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh, for the Indira Gandhi assassination of October 31, 1984, by August 2, 1998. After a series of mercy petitions and procedural questions, the two were sent to the gallows on January 6, 1999.
Execution of the pending Supreme Court verdict is only one part of the drama attending the case. In a rare combination of factors, even the investigation and trial, the two other major stages in any criminal case, are also incomplete. The first flows from the Jain Commission report, which was politicised after the Gujral government was toppled by the Congress when it refused to take action against the DMK government after the report allegedly pointed out the links maintained by the Dravidian party with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Even the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency, coordinated by the CBI, which has been investigating the case for four years now has not filed any fresh charge sheets. Unmentioned, the agency was expected to unravel ‘internal political conspiracy’, if any, in the assassination and the involvement of ‘foreign hand’. Simultaneously, the trial stage also remains incomplete, with Prabhakaran, his intelligence chief Pottu Amman, and LTTE women’s wing chief Akhila, first three accused, still at large.
(11) Dalip Singh/ dated February 3, 2003 [J&K; seeks officer back for vigilance. Source: The Telegraph, Calcutta]
The Jammu and Kashmir government has sought the repatriation of R.V.Raju, its senior IPS officer from a deputation to the Central Bureau of Investigation. Indications suggest that Raju may be asked to lead the state vigilance commission. Raju, of the 1975-batch Jammu and Kashmir cadre, was deputed to the CBI as a joint director seven months ago. He has since been heading the bureau’s special crime division. According to sources, the appointments committee led by the Central Vigilance Commissioner had on January 28 cleared Raju’s name for return to his parent cadre….Apart from Raju, J.C.Dabas, a 1977-batch IPS officer, is also scheduled to return to his parent cadre. Dabas is a joint director in the CBI who is in charge of its economic offence wing.
With Raju’s and Dabas’s exit, three posts of joint directors will fall vacant as there is no joint director for the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA), which is investigating former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. Till now, the CBI has received no recommendations on candidates for these posts. The bureau has a total of 16 joint directors.
Though the MDMA is yet to complete the investigation into Rajiv Gandhi’s murder, its staff strength has been reduced because there is hardly any work. The monitoring agency, given a couple of extensions to complete its inquiry, will wind up in May. Most of its staff have alredy been diverted to other CBI units.
(12) Interview of P.C.Sharma – the director of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) by Sachidananda Murthy/ March 9, 2003 [source: The Week Magazine; http://www.the-week.com]
Question: The government had formed a Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency five years ago to probe the conspiracy theories in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. There has been no progress. Is it a white elephant?
P.C.Sharma: The CBI brought to trial the main conspirators. Their convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court. The MDMA was set up to look into the larger conspiracy angles suggested by the Jain Commission. Since the information had to come mainly from foreign countries, we had sent letter Rogatories to 25 countries. We need to get information from persons holding very high positions in some of these countries, which we are not able to get. The success of the probe will hinge on this information.
(13) Centre decides to extend term of Rajiv murder probe panel/ May 27, 2003 [source: Taja News; http://www.tajanews.com]
The Centre has decided to extend the term of Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) appointed to probe the conspiracy aspect of Rajiv Gandhi assassination as recommended by the Jain Commission. The CBI, which heads the MDMA comprising officials from Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing, Directorate of Army Intelligence and Enforcement Directorate, had requested the Government to extend the term of the body, ending this month, by one year.
The Government has agreed in principle to extend the term, official sources said, adding a notification would follow soon. A high-powered Congress delegation led by Manmohan Singh met Deputy Prime Minister L.K.Advani this morning to discuss the extension of MDMA’s term. ‘We are gratified to note that the request has been accepted and the term has been extended,’ party spokesman S.Jaipal Reddy told reporters here. Arjun Singh and Pranab Mukherjee were also part of the delegation.
(14) by Rajnish Sharma; [CBI interrogates Chandraswami. Source: Hindustan Times, September 20, 2003]
In what could be a precursor to the opening of a new chapter in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) of the CBI grilled godman Chandraswami for nearly three hourse on Thursday in connection with the killing which had shaken India. The MDMA was constituted on the directions of the Jain Commission, which probed the conspiracy aspect of the case, to look into two main issues – the external dimension of the plot and how arms and funds were organised for the assassination.
Though the MDMA is under the CBI’s operational control, it has as its members officials from the Intelligence Bureau as well as the Research Analysis Wing. Highly placed sources said Chandraswami had been avoiding the MDMA for sometime now even though summons were consistently served on him. He was finally questioned at the MDMA’s Jamnagar House headquarters here. Sources said the godman was basically quizzed about his links with international arms merchants, particularly Adnan Khasoggi. Investigations into the assassination have uncovered that K.Padmanabhan alias KP, the LTTE’s Cyprus-based arms procurement chief, organised the arms consignment for killing Gandhi. An official privy to the MDMA probe said KP was believed to have contacts with Khasoggi as well.
(15) PTI news report from Deccan Herald (Bangalore), January 12, 2004.
A petition seeking re-investigation by the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) of the CBI into the two cases involving the late journalist Jajendar Jain, who had alleged that controversial godman Chandraswamy was the main conspirator in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, has been filed in the Supreme Court. The petition filed by Ramesh Dalal, president, Rajiv Gandhi’s Assassination Action Committee (RGAAC), has sought probe into the 1991 ‘Bomb Planting Case’ in which Chandraswamy was discharged by a trial court in December 1998 due to lack of evidence.
On November 6, 2002, the Delhi Police had filed the final report before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) and sought closing of the case as ‘untraced’. The petitioner said it had filed an application before ACMM against the closure of the case. The RGAAC has contended that death of Mr.Jain was murder and not accident and accused Delhi Police of deliberately conducting shoddy investigation to protect the main suspect. Mr.Dalal claimed that the journalist (Jain) as a witness before the Jain Commission (which inquired into the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi) could have given evidence against Chandraswamy. Realising the threat, the godman prevented his deposition before the Jain Commission and later he was killed, the petitioner alleged.
The RGAAC has sought restoration of entire strength of MDMA and timely investigation of these two cases along with already entrusted probe into the ‘wider conspiracy’ leading to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.
(16) by K.V.Prasad and V.S.Palaniappan [Jayalalitha seeks absolute majority in State’s interest; news report in The Hindu, Chennai; March 23, 2004.]
….Ms.Jayalalitha criticised the Congress President, Sonia Gandhi, for giving a clean chit to DMK, though the Jain Commission in its interim report indicted it in Rajiv Gandhi assassination. The clean chit, given for electoral gains, came even as the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) was yet to complete its inquiry. For the sake of power, Ms. Gandhi wanted to treat her husband’s assassination as a thing of the past…