Tell-tale tapes suggest false cases?

By Mukund Padmanabhan

NEW DELHI, JULY 23. Secretly-taped telephone conversations - said to be between two IAS-level officials in the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms. Jayalalithaa's office and an accused on the run - form the main body of the evidence of a writ petition filed in the Supreme Court late this afternoon. The petition, filed by the wife of a Chennai businessman, Mr. P.K. Salahuddin, claims that the two cases against him and his twin brother are ``false and frivolous'' and registered at the instance of the Chief Minister.

The petition suggests that Mr. Salahuddin, managing director of an Indo-German company Silicon Valley Progress Werk Pvt. Ltd, and his brother, Mr. P.K. Muyeenuddin, are innocent victims of an unrelated financial dispute over a large sum of money between Ms. Jayalalithaa and her disowned foster son, Mr. V. N. Sudhagaran.

The two brothers were accused along with Mr. Sudhagaran of assaulting his former personal secretary, Mr. Gopu Sridhar, in a case registered on June 13. A fortnight later they were accused, in another case registered under the Narcotics Act, of the possession of heroin.

While Mr. Muyeenuddin has been arrested and remanded to judicial custody, Mr. Salahuddin has evaded arrest. The petition claims that after the two FIRs were lodged, Mr. Salahuddin had spoken and secretly taped phone conversations with two Deputy Secretaries of the Chief Minister - Mr. S. Natarajan and Mr. C. Chandramohan - who man her Poes Garden residence. Also taped, according to the petition, were conversations with Mr. Rajendran, Assistant Commissioner of Police said to be the ``overall-in- charge'' of the two cases.

Translated transcripts of these conversations, said to be taped between July 1 and 6, form part of the annexures of the petition. On the basis of the annexed transcripts, which run into many pages, the petition claims that both Mr. Natarajan and Mr. Rajendran have admitted that the cases against them were ``false''.

The petition claims that the cases were registered against Mr. Salahuddin ``so as to get back the money taken away by Mr. Sudhagaran from her (Ms. Jayalalithaa's) residence when she was in jail'' a few years ago. It states that, as early as 1997, Ms. Jayalalithaa had personally informed him that Mr. Sudhagaran had ``taken away crores of rupees and lots of jewellery... from her house when she was under arrest''. The petition claims that Ms. Jayalalithaa ``appeared to be under the belief'' that Mr. Salahuddin ``was given some money and part of the wealth for safe custody by Mr. Sudhagaran''. Mr. Salahuddin is said to have denied this.

The petition claims that Mr. Salahuddin came into contact with Ms. Jayalalitha and Mr. Sudhagaran in 1994-95. During this period, one of Mr. Salahuddin's companies provided ``hardware and technical advisory services'' for JJ TV and Super Duper TV, a television channel and a cable network company owned by Mr. Sudhagaran and his aunt Ms. Sasikala Natarajan. This is said to have been undertaken on ``a purely commercial basis'' and Mr. Salahuddin is said to have lost all contact with Mr. Sudhagaran when JJ TV and Super Duper TV were wound up.

The petition claims that after he was accused in the two cases, Mr. Salahuddin spoke to the officials ``on the pretext that he is aware of the facts regarding the whereabouts of the money'' (allegedly taken away by Mr. Sudhagaran from her residence). One of the Chief Minister's Deputy Secretaries, Mr. Natarajan, is alleged, on the basis of the transcripts, to have guaranteed that Mr. Salahuddin would not be arrested if he cooperated ``in getting back the money''. ``In order to buy peace'', Mr. Salahuddin is said to have offered to pay Rs. 57.5 lakhs, of which Rs. 10 lakhs would be paid immediately, in a conversation with Mr. Natarajan.

Among the respondents named in the petition are Mr. Natarajan, Mr. Chandramohan, Mr. Rajendran, Ms. Jayalalithaa, Mr. Gopu Sridhar, Mr. Muthukaruppan (Commissioner of Police, Chennai) and two police inspectors.

The petition seeks the quashing of the two FIRs against Mr. Salahuddin and his brother, and a CBI investigation into the cases. In the event that the CBI concludes that the cases lodged were ``intentionally false and frivolous'', the petition seeks the prosecution of the above respondents.

The advocate on record for the writ petition was Mr. R.P. Singh and the petition was settled by Senior Advocate Mr. P.S. Mishra, a former Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court.

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