NC Hills Scam: Punish All the Culprits

By JP Rajkhowa

One of the most sensational news of recent times in Assam happens to be the unearthing and seizure of Rs 13.45 crore by the CBI from the residence of one Amjad Hussain, a suspended junior engineer of DRDA and brother-in-law of one of the prime accused in the multi-crore-rupee NC Hills scam, RH Khan, who is a suspended Deputy Director of State Social Welfare Department and was posted in the NC Hills Autonomous Council at the time of his arrest by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

“So huge was the amount seized that the CBI sleuths, divided into 20 teams, had to bring note-counting machines from banks to count the money” (The Sentinel, June 17, 2010).

The report further states that Hussain had fled from police custody at Dhubri police station after his arrest in two criminal cases about two years back and was since notified as an absconder.

While the CBI deserve kudos from one and all not only for recovering an unbelievable amount of cash and for arresting the ‘absconding’ public servant, the Assam Police equally deserves public condemnation — firstly, for allowing the arrested accused to escape from its custody, and secondly, for failing to rearrest him in two years, which the CBI could do so easily.

It is high time for the top brass in the Assam Police to do some real soul-searching and ensure effective steps to free itself from the clutches of extraneous evil forces and do real policing job for the public.

Following huge public uproar demanding thorough investigation into the NC Hills scam by the CBI and front-page media reports and editorials demanding CBI investigation into the scam detected by the NIA, the Assam Chief Minister initially tried to pass the buck to the opposition-backed autonomous council authorities headed by the disgraced Mohit Hojai, but later stated that the scam could be to the extent of Rs 35 to 40 crore only and that no minister of his government was involved in the scam.

Later, at the instance of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, Gogoi referred the scam case to the CBI. Now with the recovery of such huge amount of money from just one official, who is related to RH Khan of the Social Welfare Department, it is clear that many other corrupt officials and politicians of other departments could also be responsible for misappropriating huge amounts of public funds and for also passing on the usual share to militant outfits for anti-national activities.

People expect that the CBI would make all-out efforts to bring all the swindlers to justice and recover all their ill-gotten wealth, no matter what political pressure could be brought on it as had happened in the past.

It is learnt from media reports that the State government had requested the CBI to conduct inquiry into the affairs of only four departments. It is also reported that the CBI has been asked by the State government to inquire into the financial irregularities and corruption committed during the period 2007-09 only, when the autonomous council was headed by the ASDC, with Mohit Hojai as CEM.

During that period, the State government had released a total fund of Rs 60 crore to the council of which Rs 30 crore was necessary only for payment of salaries to the employees. 

According to analysts, it is most unlikely that out of the rest of the amount to be spent by all the departments, RH Khan had diverted Rs 14 crore or so for himself, which he kept concealed at the residence of his brother-in-law Amjad Hussain.

It is strongly suspected that the swindling of huge amounts of public funds has been going on over the years, during the terms of previous Congress-led councils too, in collusion with key politicians and officials, and that substantial amounts were also regularly contributed to militant outfits.

In order to ascertain the entire swindled amount and to trace the illegal recipients and bring them to justice, the CBI should move the State government to extend the terms of reference for its inquiry appropriately. In this context, the CBI would do well to look into the report of Prakash Mahanta, published in Asomiya Pratidin (June 17, 2010) for additional clues.

While the CBI has achieved initial success in its investigation into the scam, we should not be euphoric at that. We should await further results of the investigation and arrest of all the culprits involved, whosoever they may be.

The CBI’s actual success could be judged from their ability to produce clinching and incontrovertible evidence, both oral as well as documentary, thereby establishing the guilt of the accused persons, leading to conviction by the court of law.

Going by the experience of the nation in high-profile and much-hyped scam cases such as the Hawala case, JMM bribery case and the Bofors gun deal, to name only a few, the public cannot be sure of successful prosecution in the NC Hills scam case(s) too, unless there are reasons to believe that this time the CBI would do its best to bring all the culprits to justice, without bowing to any kind of political pressure or temptation.

I remember that in 2004, at the instance of the Assam Government, the CBI had taken up for investigation the then widely published multi-crore crude oil pilferage case, in which a nexus of oil thieves, ONGC/OIL officials, police officials, transporters and politicians was suspected to be involved in regular swindling of the public wealth.

Though six years have already elapsed, we have not yet seen any media report indicating the completion of the investigation and successful prosecution of all the accused persons, resulting in their conviction.

Likewise, we are not aware of the fate of the then infamous multi-crore Janata Cloth scam which was taken up by the CBI for investigation about two decades ago. The people have a right to know about the fate of these cases taken up by the CBI.

Whether the NC Hills scam involved swindling of Rs 1,000 crore or any other amount by public servants and others, only a thorough, painstaking, fearless and impartial investigation by the CBI would be able to find it out. In spite of the overall low conviction rate in the CBI-probed cases so far, in our opinion the CBI is the only capable and trustworthy national investigation agency, though it has had its own pitfalls occasionally due to some of its officers being caught on the wrong foot.

The Director of CBI is usually chosen from the best of police officers available in the country by an independent selection board, and as such, it is believed that he would live up to the expectations of the people, and in the instant scam case, would personally supervise, monitor and guide the investigators so that the case could be brought to its logical conclusion in a reasonable time-frame and all the guilty persons brought to justice.

This is also a great opportunity for the Assam Chief Minister to re-establish his lost image of being a clean public leader, which he can do by extending full cooperation to the CBI team of investigators, including for interrogation of his ministerial colleagues and also raiding of their premises and linked establishments, should any of them come under cloud in the course of the investigation.

**The writer is a former Chief Secretary, Assam