Centre to sue 3 former PMs

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, APRIL 28. The Centre would file a suit against three former Prime Ministers - Mr. P. V. Narasimha Rao, Mr. Chandra Shekhar and Mr. H. D. Deve Gowda - to recover dues amounting to Rs. 11.8 crores which they owe it for using defence aircraft for private purposes while in office.

Each of them would be served legal notice informing them of the Government's decision against them within two days, the Additional Solicitor-General, Mr. S. B. Jaisinghani, today informed the Delhi High Court.

The High Court is seized of a public interest litigation (PIL) by an advocate, Mr. W. B. Wadhera, seeking recovery of the dues. Earlier, the court had refused to issue notices to the three former Prime Ministers and had asked the Government to explore every option to recover the money.

The Additional Solicitor-General informed a Division Bench comprising Mr. Justice Arun Kumar and Mr. Justice D. K. Jain that the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) had given a green signal to file suit against them.

The approval for initiating legal action came on April 5 and draft of legal notice was ready and opinion of legal experts had been taken.

The name of the late Prime Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, had been deleted from the defaulters' list as the Congress(I) had paid the dues of Rs. 1.86 crores on his account.

But the party has been maintaining silence over its promise that it would pay in installments - Rs. 5.52 crores which Mr. Rao owes to the Defence Ministry. The Government had asked the party to inform it by March 31. But the party failed to get back, the ASG said.

As regards Mr. Chandra Shekhar and Mr. Gowda, they had raised certain reservations to the mode of recovery of the dues, Mr. Singhani said.

Mr. Gowda's Janata Dal (S) told the Government that he (Mr. Gowda) had used Defence aircraft for the ``original'' Janata Dal - of which the Union Civil Aviation Minister, Mr. Sharad Yadav, was the president - and it was he who should respond to the Government's query on the issue, Mr. Singhani said.

``Mr. Gowda's stance is improper and, therefore, we have decided to serve notices to each individual Prime Minister instead of the parties they belonged to as was done earlier,'' he said.

Mr. Chandra Shekhar owes Rs. 5.91 crores, while Mr. Gowda Rs. 54.61 lakhs. They should be served separate notices as they had used aircraft not the parties they belonged to, Mr. Singhani said

Mr. Chandra Shekhar's Samajwadi Janata Party questioned the rationale for making the parties liable for the payments for unofficial journeys by the former Prime Ministers, the Defence Ministry affidavit said.

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