The Amitabh Bachchan defence won't save 2G, CWG scamsters

In a critical scene in the super-hit 1970s film Deewaar, when confronted by his police officer brother (played by Shashi Kapoor) about his illegal activities, Amitabh Bachchan challenges him thus: “Sure, I’ll confess to my crimes and sign a confession. But first get those people to sign who did such-and-such to our father and mother…”. You get the drift.

Watch the dialogues from the movie Deewaar

This is the classic defence of the criminal when caught in the act. He plays up his sense of being wronged, of being unfairly targeted when other, bigger criminals, are still at large. Needless to say, however well it may play at the box-office, in legal terms, this is no argument at all.

When you are accused of a crime, you defend yourself against it. The law will not cut you any slack just because someone else out there also committed the same crime or did worse.

India’s growing tribe of jailed politicians and businessmen, and also politicians who are trying to deflect blame from their current masters, have been consistently using the Amitabh Bachchan line of defence - whether it is in the 2G scam, the Commonwealth Games (CWG) scandal or the illegal mining capers, or anything.

Their arguments are variants of two themes: “Why me? Look at the other crooks first”; or “He (usually a minister or bureaucrat) knew I was doing this, so he’s guilty too.” The third and final tactic is to question the authority of the accuser - whether it is the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the courts or a Lokayukta or a political rival.

Whether it works with the courts or not, what is clear is that these arguments appear to be succeeding in confusing the issues - at least in terms of public perceptions, if talk shows on TV channels are any guide. The media, which is now into public trials, aids the process of confusion by allowing politicians to pull wool over everyone’s eyes.

Consider what every accused is saying:

PM’s hand in CWG: When the Comptroller and Auditor General raised questions about the PM’s hand in the appointment of Suresh Kalmadi as Chairman of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (OC), Sports Minister Ajay Maken’s main defence was that the NDA did it all. “The NDA government, while bidding for the Games, deleted the word “government appointee” from the bid document.” This is what paved the way for the selection of Kalmadi as OC chief instead of the sports minister, as decided at an earlier meeting at a meeting to which the PM was party.

Sidestepped completely in the argument is the fact that Kalmadi was into several dubious deals, and it all happened during Manmohan Singh’s watch as PM.

2G scam: Shahid Balwa, promoter of Swan Telecom, an alleged beneficiary of A Raja’s spectrum largesse, employed both techniques mentioned above. He asked the CBI court that in trying to frame charges against him why the Tatas were not being questioned for donating money to Raja’s trust. His lawyer also wanted to implicate Pranab Mukherjee in the spectrum allocation case, saying he was privy to a discussion on the spectrum allocation policy.

Raja, when it was his turn to say his piece in court last week, used all three lines of argument, including the Bachchan defence. He said if he should be in jail, maybe all telecom ministers should be in jail for the first-come-first-served (FCFS) policy on issuing licences and spectrum. He also dragged the PM into the argument, saying he was fully in the loop.

Last, he declared CAG and the CBI ineligible to accuse him of causing losses to the exchequer. He said CAG was a “legal illiterate”, which had no business claiming that the 2G scam involved a loss of Rs 1,76,000 crore. He also criticised the CBI for crashing into his party. “Who is CBI to decide the loss? Let the government say so.”

Raja’s Sancho Panza, Siddhartha Behura, a key co-accused, used the “Why me?” argument. He told the CBI court that he had no role to play in the spectrum scam. All of it happened before he entered the picture as telecom secretary. “Subbarao (the RBI Governor, who was then finance secretary) finalised the decision taken in the meeting of December 4, 2007, that the policy stood approved and the entry fees need not be revised”, Behara told the judge.

For good measure, Behura also tried the “why not them?” line. “The entire (UPA) Cabinet has collective responsibility for the policy that was formulated. The government has publicly defended the policy. Why am I being made a scapegoat?” asked Behura with injured innocence. “How can people who formulated the policy be witness and I be made an accused when I only implemented what they decided?” Again, a Bachchan argument variant.

And lastly, the “who are you to question me” argument. “This court is not competent to analyse policy decisions. I’m being falsely penalised,” said Behura.

The Bellary mining scam: Here it was the BJP’s turn to do the Bachchan dialogue, while outgoing Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa questioned the Lokayukta’s report and jurisdiction after having himself set his terms of reference. While his party asked the Congress why it hadn’t acted against Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit even after the Shunglu Committee and the CAG had made adverse comments on the Delhi’s government’s excessive expenditure in CWG projects, Yeddyurappa has challenged the Lokayukta report in the Karnataka High Court.

“The Lokayukta, before giving his report, did not call for the explanation either by the petitioner, or sons of the petitioner, Prerana Trust, or South West Mining Company Ltd, or Jindal Group. As such, the findings arrived at by the Lokayukta are unsustainable,” says the Hindustan Times quoting Yeddyurappa’s petition.

The PM’s Office: The PMO has not come off too clean in the 2G scam. While Manmohan Singh himself has not used the Bachchan argument in the 2G scam - the buck after all stops with him - his office and his party colleagues have been offering convoluted arguments to protect his reputation. When Raja said PM was in the loop, Kapil Sibal dismissed the argument as being something an accused had thrown to deflect blame in court.

When confronted with a file noting dated 23 January 2008 which said the PM’s office wanted to be kept at “arm’s length” from decisions on the allocation of spectrum, it was widely interpreted as the PM trying to steer clear of his responsibility as head of government to stop Raja’s dubious practices.

The PMO now says the noting was about creating a level playing field and did not relate to how Raja plotted to favour some bidders. But is this the plain meaning of the noting, which read thus? “PM wants this informally shared with the department (of telecom). (He) does not want a formal communication and wants PMO to be at arm’s length.” You judge.

The Chidambaram case: Home Minister P Chidambaram’s discomfiture w hen Raja claimed he had cleared the stake sale by Swan Telecom and Unitech Wireless (it was stake sale, and not spectrum sale, Chidambaram as FM said). The promoters of both Swan and Unitech are behind bars for being the alleged beneficiaries of Raja’s favours. Chidambaram counter-attacked the BJP for it. According to him, the accusation that he was complicit in the 2G scam is coming now because the BJP was worried about investigations into the Hindu terror cells. This is surely the most bizarre of arguments. It is entirely political. Perhaps, Chidu hasn’t seen Deewaar.

The endgame is this. In Deewaar, Amitabh Bachchan came to grief. His argument finally did not work with law enforcement. India’s worthy (or is it unworthy) politicians and businessmen are hoping their current script will have a happier ending.