 We are about to begin and I am extremely thankful to each and every one of you who come here at short notice. Let me request Dr. Vithul Muthkal. He is the director of Common Cause and he is the master of ceremonies. Today's function. The tea is over but there is more tea coming and the books are available for sale at the back. It is a privilege to welcome you all. Let me first invite the speakers to come to the diet. Mr. Arun Surya, Mr. Sushant Bhutan, Mr. Kamal Khan Jatwal, Mr. Aruna Nandi, Mr. Dinesh Devedi and Mr. Harjit Singh Bhat. It is a privilege to welcome you all. The book is very appropriately called Loom Stages. Four cases that could have taken India but did not end up doing so. The book examines two sets of documents. Virula Sahara Papers and Kalipa Posts Inside North. And you need to do a lot of reading between the lines and that is where the authors really help you. They put it all together. They join the door and help you see how this has become a rough guide to Indian democracy. I have also the privilege of reading the manuscript of the book. And I can tell you that it is a page turner. Once you started it is absolutely unportalable. It is like, you know, truth being stranger and fiction. This is, you will see all the big shots, all the big institutions, how they work in tandem and how democracy is undermined. My own takeaway is in two parts and I will not take very long. I will just say two things in this. One is that there is a monster in front of us. In the midst of all of us there is a monster with each money. And it is called the election. It is meeting money today. It is all around us. Between early October and early December it needs about 10,000 crores. Which is about 200 crores a day, 150, 200, you are taking 30-40 crores here or there. It is meeting about 6 to 10 crores every hour. That money has to be secured from somewhere. All parties have to get that money. Somebody has to do the deal. Somebody has to spend the money. Somebody has to return that money. Now, why are we surprised when money comes tumbling out of cupboard when there is an IT rate or there is an election commission rate or there is a seizure of any type? What kind of evidence are we looking for? There have been diaries in the past. Actually not diaries. There were a set of papers I am told by a very senior CVI officer who happens to be here. That Jain Hawala diaries were not diaries at all. They were like balance sheets. Everything was matching. They were expenditure and they were earning all the money which how much went to which size was all shown. But if you see the Sahara Bill of papers, it will take your breath. It will take your breath away. This is like pukka. Absolutely pukka accounting work. You know, all the name of the person who delivers the money, the phone number of the person, the dedication of the person, everything is given. The time and what is not given perhaps which could have been accepted as evidence is that there is no repeat. Nobody has said that 89 crores of black money received with hands in five installments. So perhaps the authorities are looking for that. We will have some questions and answers in the end. But anyway, we should not be surprised where door number of the entries are recovered. And the second point that the three point that I want to make my take away from the book from the manuscript that I read is that the money can bring you elections, but you need something else. To stay in the business, you need to stop the watchdog from doing their work. You need to stop whichever watchdog. It could be CBI, it could be CDC, it could be CAG of India, it could be the court. You have to make sure that they do not do their job. So that this business of taking money and giving money continues. So with this, this is almost like a provocation to my speakers. I'll invite one by one. And surely you'll have, I mean there's no time keeping, but yes, nothing about change, 12 minutes. We start with Harshor Singh Bal. Harshor was the first person who actually put the papers in public domain as the political editor of Caravan Magazine. Harshor Singh Bal, I can, I mean it's actually no point introducing Mr. Arun Sury in Press Club of India. I mean it's like, but I'm told I'm given this responsibility of introducing people in probably one line. I would say Harshor Singh Bal, investigative journalist, political editor, award winning author. He's written a book of fiction, which can be described as like you have science fiction, philosophy and mathematics fiction. So this is what he does in his free time whenever he gets it. Mr. Dinesh Divedi, one of India's most respected senior lawyers of the Supreme Court of India, and explored all constitutional matters and takes up a large number of public interest petitions, one of our petitions against criminalization of politics was taken up by him. Karuna Nandi, a human rights lawyer with specialization on women's safety constitutional matters, also an activist and a winner of many, many awards. Activist, so she's not an activist. Okay. She's a legal scholar. Okay. Mr. Kamal Khan Jaswal, a very respected former IS officer of UP Carter, has been IT secretary, member secretary of N2UF, popularly known as Arjun Sandukta, commissioned on unorganized sector, and he's also the president of civil society organization, common thought. Mr. Pritan Bhushan, public interest lawyer, legal activist, after activist act, versus judicial accountability and reforms. Mr. Arun Shauri, economist, journalist, author, politician who's becoming unfit for politics. I hope you stay in politics, sir. So, over to her coaching part. Good evening and I'll maybe just set the stage for the speakers to follow. I think the story and the book for Anjaye and the co-authors and everything, I think is illustrative of our time. We're talking to a few people right before the function started and they did ask me, in what way does this period, this time frame, this movie administration, 2014, how does it differ from what is defeated? And I think the simple answer is that we have lost all sense of shame. And what does that mean? Bigotry is respectable today. You are allowed to voice opinion in public that you will be ashamed of in private five or seven years ago. You may have believed the same thing you would have never voiced it. That same sense of shame is to be apparent in every aspect of public life. And what this book documents is that same sense of shame has come to areas such as corruption, governance, law, investigations. It pervades every aspect of this government. I think it's now some years since Paranjaye came to us. As usual, when Paranjaye comes to office, we know that we are in it for the long haul. I've got an interesting story for you. And we said, sure, will you carry it? We said, we'll sit down with it, we'll see what we have to do with it. And we know that I and Ananthar had it as a caravan. We looked at what are the Sahara Pillar papers as Ripula said. It was a clear set of entries, not indication it was entries about politicians naming the people who had gone, met them, where, on which state, documenting the amount that had been paid. It included a list of politicians across political parties, Shivraj Chauhan in Madhya Pradesh, Sheila Dixit in Delhi. But most importantly, Narendra Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat. And there are separate entries by a man named Jaiswal who has made those statements. Clearly these were not systems, fabrications of a computer. These were detailed entries which would allow examination and investigation if they were acted on. So when we finally published the story, it was published after asking everybody involved in the story to respond. We published excerpts of the diary as is evident now. And as the book mentions that the income tax officer Anjali Pandey who had made these eases of the diary, who refused to confirm or deny signatures, matched the signatures which were on these papers in terms of the collection of these papers during an income tax rate. As you go through the book and I think there are enough lawyers here who will detail out what happened in court. But I will just point to a few indicators that will just matter. Like the Kalikopoi which was a suicide note of former Chief Minister naming the sons and relatives of two people who went on then to became Chief Justice of India. Justice Keher's son as having received money and our own mission as relatives. Again these are stories we followed up in Karawan. We actually contacted Justice Keher's son who after a 5 minute conversation fishing around for information or evidence refused to comment one way or the other about the allegations against him. My point is that when these cases went up in the Supreme Court, one Justice Keher had no business actually getting a judgment in this case. But as we have seen later in the Arun Mishra case, there has been unfortunate tendency I think which became most visible in the lawyer case that a demand for an investigation is preempted by the courts by saying that they have looked at the material evidence and decided it does not require an evidence. That while doing so, they do not allow the full scope of material that is available to be actually subject to scrutiny in making that decision. In some ways the very decision they are asked to make is a decision that is pre-chose by the court and used to dismiss a very valid case for investigation. And this was as to in the Sahara Billa diaries again which I think again the lawyers who follow will make a clear case for that. It is also true that the number of public officers who intersect with the story are again pointers to the same sense of shame that is totally missing. It again involves the same characters, same stories of the person involved with the income tax department, not the income tax department but today who is CDC. The job is a perfect example of what goes wrong. Mr. Chaudhary was a constant visitor to Ranjeet Srinath's house. These two investigation agencies were actually looking at each other's role and Mr. Srinath and Mr. Chaudhary both ended up giving clean checks to each other. Not only that, Mr. Chaudhary's visits were locked in the Ranjeet Srinath diaries. Unfortunately when the Supreme Court actually allowed the examination of these diaries, it limited the mandate of the Sharma committee to a single point which is the court's care. It makes for depressing reading. Ambani officials, senior Ambani men including a man very well known to most journalists in Delhi who are investigating anything, Tony Jesuda sir, were constant visitors to Ranjeet Srinath's house. At the same time Mr. Chaudhary was visiting. The number of important investigations that were going on at that point of time started from the toji, involved the court's camp, involved the radia tapes. The people meeting Ranjeet Srinath's residence was party in each of these cases. But the only aspect so far that has been examined despite people like Prashant Bhushan pushing for it is the involvement of those named in the court's camp. Clearly as this book points out, not only is it a missed opportunity, an opportunity that should have gone to the core of the lot that leads to the very top of this government. It is also a symptom of where we are today that we are in public life where any deletion, any misdemeanor by an official is not enough to stop them from holding the highest posts. Not only that, they can use these highest posts to derail justice and the benefits of this go directly to the person in power today, Narendra Modi and this government. And I think you will get more of these details from the people who call them. I am certainly new to this assembly and the assembly is a little daunting. I have been asked by Mr. Ranjeet to come on this occasion. And I felt I was on this pit, but nevertheless I think it was a far friendship. And this is not very old, about five, six months old. But we evolved our friendship because when I met him, couple of occasions, I found that he was a man who was quite frank, portrait, and depth of analogy. He is the same city in his life also. So that attracted me towards him. And since then we carried on. When he asked me to look into the book, make suggestions if possible. I did go through the book. There were certain differences between us, but then that's fair enough. And I am sure we must have taken them into consideration. Now when I look at the title of the book, that is where my difference is within. Serious difference. Do's pages. Now when I read the book, before it was finalized, I found it was quite incisive. Calling paid a price. It was false rights. And then I felt it certainly deserved a better heading than Do's pages. As we say in Hindi, It was a team-shaking effort with rationalization of the base level, at least I could have done it. And I do therefore problem them for the effort he has put in. And I am not competent enough to make any assessment or judgment on whatever he has written. It is certainly worth reading. There is no doubt about it. There is another difference which I had. The important topic of missed opportunity. Because I prefer to put in court missing opportunities. But then I think the correct way of looking at it is. Put in court doesn't function on opportunity. It has to perform an obligation to uphold the constitution and the law. And to uphold it in accordance with the constitution and the law. Therefore if Put in court fails to do that, then it is certainly in cross error and is failing to discharge its constitutional obligation. It is not a case of missed opportunity. It is a quite mild way of saying that Put in court was committing an error seriously. Now the serious error which Ranjore has of course referred to is that Put in court while assessing the Berna-Sahara values and other status, law status applied totally wrong principle of law in avoiding investigation into the matter. Because that was the stage of evidence. The evidence comes only posted in a investigation convention and then some document being filed in the court of law along with the evidence to charge it. But there are states when the allegation is made, the court's jurisdiction is very limited. It can at best be that the allegation on the case really do contain the necessary ingredients of the allegation. If they do, then the court has to proceed with the investigation. Now let me show it in another way. Supposing tomorrow we go to lodge an FIR in the police station and the investigating officer over there or the Bhanai Chal over there tells us that where is the evidence that is in relation to this allegation. Now the person who goes to lodge an FIR is just important. It is further to supply the investigating officer the evidence as per the evidence I asked. Then what is the use of the investigation? It is the obligation of the investigator to find out. And there are so many investigations in the horizon that I don't know why. The critical question to realize and ask is as you know Supreme Court says what it did just no doubt about it. It applied wrong principle. It not only applied wrong principle. It applied wrong judgment to Supreme Court. It was apparently not applicable. But then what still remains to be asked and it bothers me that there is so many investigating agencies under the sun why none of them is taking up these investigations which I am more than confident the allegations are strong enough to at least call for investigation into the matter. The next evidence and if after investigation you don't find relevant material then you can give up the investigation. But that is what being done. That is the critical part which is sad and which is destroying the system. Now coming back to the book. The book points out all these things. In a better way then I have been able to answer. And I must compliment Mr. Parvinder for this effort. And I hope we get to free many more such books coming out and many more such occasions where I don't know whether I will get an opportunity to meet the people again or not. But I certainly hope I may. Thank you for the interview and thank you everyone. So this particular book that has this book is based on a series of documents which went into the Supreme Court as I was going to mention. And when the Supreme Court did not find its way to start an investigation into the Sahara Vilna paper it termed it as no sheets of paper. And to do this it relied on an act which is more than one and a half century old. And I think 1872 and a part of these papers was thrown out because they were not in a bowels form and they could be used to be detached at any moment. So what are these papers? These papers are four major volumes of an investigative report prepared by the income tax department allegedly and a verdict pronounced by the income tax management commission. Apart from this it also includes a 60 page suicide note typed and signed by a former chief minister of this country Mr. Kaleco-Pool, former chief minister of Nassan's village and all of this evidence at various points that reaches the Supreme Court but the Supreme Court does not find its way to start an investigation on these papers. So I think a lot has been written about the nexus between politicians, bureaucrats and the biggest corporations in our country. But what the case of the Sahara Vilna papers and Kaleco-Pool suicide note show is that the Supreme Court itself in the higher duty of our country has been functioning in a manner over the years which ultimately led to the famous famous briefing called at the beginning of this year by the fourth senior most judge of the Supreme Court after the PGI. So this will follow the patterns of what's been going on in the Supreme Court at the higher levels of the bureaucracy, the legislature, the executives and just everything together. This will actually have some of the most important decisions in our country regarding the allocation of national resources, staff national resources has been made over the years. So I hope you guys will be reading this book and shortly, I think right now with an association where a serving director of the CBI terms it the center for bogus investigations and also enforcement directorates, the extortion directorates. Never before in our country has something like this happened. And I mean it's really up for, I mean it's really, I mean the question is out there right now, can these institutions be reformed? Can the premier investigator agencies actually made more autonomous while functioning under the legislature? So please read this book and come to the end. I just wanted to emphasize that what Surya and I will be able to do is a lot of us keep talking about the nexus between business and politics. But the role that is played by the judiciary, especially the higher judiciary often doesn't come under the scan. Most writers, most journalists are scared of committing what is called contempt, of course. And today we find that there are large, influential individuals including representatives of corporate groups who often in my opinion misuse the law to harass and intimidate all those who put out anything in the public domain which is critical of our netals, yesterday at an interview Surya and I, we were asked, the Supreme Court said these documents are, but all practical purposes useless. How do you know they're authentic? How do you know they're genuine? All I can say is that we tried our best to ask the person concerned, are these documents genuine? Are these documents authentic? Are these documents credible? We can question as, we can detailed question as which have been reproduced as annexes in the book to important people, very, very important people, some of the most important and most influential persons in this country. None of them got that point. None of them said that these documents are forged or inaccurate or not authentic. As journalists, as writers, we try and do our level best. Maybe we don't have the answers to all the questions, but I think it's very important to raise the questions that matter. I want to thank all the people here on the panel, Rupal Mughal and Kamal Ji in particular with common cause. Common cause has been in the forefront. I am indebted to them. I know the Governor-General of Common Cause, the least inedible, Karuna Nandini, Prashan Bhushan, Kamala Arthoshwal and of course the Governor-General Shurik, who agreed to speak here as such short notice. One of our colleagues, she helps us a lot with the legal deal. After we wrote the manuscript, we ran it through a number of lawyers. We wanted to be very, very sure that every single details details was accurate, the legalese and the bureaucraties. And I must give Surya credit that we were able to sort of go through huge volumes of data which were written in very, very boring source in bureaucratic language, in legal language, and tried our level best to tell you a story which will hopefully engage you. I want to also thank my wife and daughter, Jaya and Surya, for giving me the idea. Asan couldn't be here. Surya Saren Sajayas, who comes from Mumbai and Kolkata to be here on this occasion. So that's all. Thank you so much once again. And I now invite Pritam Bhushan, who gave a very, very spirited demand and took up this case to the Supreme Court. Please come and see. Please, everybody. The book is very appropriately titled, Loose Paper Court cases that could have shaken India. Indeed, the history of this country could have been, possibly would have been, very different. Had the Birla Sahara paper been subjected to a proper investigation. So what was found in the Birla and Sahara paper? Income tax rated Birla, CVI, or maybe the other way, around CVI rated one. Income tax rated the other. I think income tax rated Birla, CVI rated Sahara. But after the raid by the CVI, instead of embarking on an investigation on the basis of what it had recovered, it just handed over the paper to the income tax. So let's quickly see what were the kind of documents that were recovered in these raids. So in the Birla case, there were a large number of emails, emails written by the group president to other senior officers, to various other people. There were notebooks maintained, which seemed to be notebooks of some kind of account. There were other, what Supreme Court called loose papers, which mentioned payments to various people in the ministry, officials in the ministry of environment, to people in the directorate of revenue intelligence, and various other officials. And in particular, 25 lakhs in cash was recovered from the, 25 crores of cash was recovered from an albira in one of the premises. And not only that, the income tax examined all these people and prepared a four-volume appraisal report. It was just six. The four volumes are about 1,500 pages in all. And in that appraisal report, they said that we asked the custodian of this albira from where the cash was recovered as to how did this cash get here? Who does it belong to? And what is it used for? And that person gave answer that, yes, this cash is, comes from various Angadiyas, that is these kind of Havala dealers, who deliver this cash in amounts from time to time, few crores, 30 lakhs, 1 crore, et cetera, at a time. And thereafter, it is used for delivering to various government officials on the directions of our group president. Thereafter, the income tax went to some of these Angadiyas who confirmed that, yes, I have been paying, and I recently paid this money, which was recorded in that time. The note that was recovered regarding payments to the Ministry of Environment, tallyed very clearly with the clearances. The date tallyed very, very precisely with the date from which environmental clearances were given to the villa group of companies by the Ministry of Environment. So the appraisal report says that we have examined these documents that we have recovered, and our investigation shows that these documents represent the correct state of affairs. That these payments have indeed been made, that this cash has indeed been recovered, et cetera. Yet, in the face of this 1,500-page appraisal report of the income tax department itself, which confirmed not only the recovery of these documents, but which confirmed the contents of these documents. Even then, the Supreme Court said that these are loose papers on the basis of which no investigation can be ordered. And what happened in the Sahara case? In the Sahara case, one critical document which was recovered was a spreadsheet recovered from the computer of one of the officers of Sahara. That spreadsheet contained on the one side details of cash received, 137 crores of cash received over a period of less than a year from different sources. The sources are mentioned, the gates are mentioned, the amounts are mentioned. And most of the sources are mentioned as mark-on. Mark-on means the marketing company, communication company of Sahara. On the other side of the spreadsheet contained details of how this 137 crore cash which was received was spent. And it mentions nine entries mentioning nine payments of five crores each, seven payments of five crores each, two payments of 2.5 crores each, to Gujarat Chief Minister or Mr. Modi. Neither referred to as Gujarat Chief Minister or Modi. The date of payment, the place of payment, in every case the payment is mentioned at having been paid in Ahmedabad. Date are mentioned, place is mentioned, the person who took the money is mentioned, and the person in whose hand the cash is delivered is mentioned. In each case, it is delivered in the hands of Mr. Modi in Ahmedabad. And the person who takes the cash is mentioned as Kaniyya Jaiswal, who is an officer of Sahara. Then there are many other entries containing two entries to Mr. Shivraj Johan totaling 10 crores, one entry to Mr. Sathir Gashiv Minister, a month in four crores, one entry to Sinha Dixit, one crore, and very another entry, total 135 crores, having been paid on different dates at different places by different people in the hands of different persons. Such a detailed account. And we didn't get a copy of the income tax approval reports. But what we did get was an order of the settlement commission, because once we filed this case, Birna quickly moved the settlement income tax settlement commission to settle the case. And the settlement commission with great inaccuracy transferred out to an official, brought in somebody else, quickly had a hearing and within a month, this case was settled and the papers was quickly handed back to this company. But in the order of that settlement commission, they say income tax department said that they have cross-checked the receipts of cash mentioned from this company, Markom, which is a marketing communication company, and found that it tallies with the lesser entries of the Markom that on the same date where cash is received, is mentioned in this spreadsheet, cash having been withdrawn from Markom is mentioned same amount, same dates, and they said that this tallies. And therefore, that could have confirmed the authenticity of the entry. So they not only confirm the recovery of the spreadsheet in the rate, they also confirm the amount mentioned in the spreadsheet as being the true state of affairs. And yet the Supreme Court says that these are all newspapers, not admissible evidence, no investigation can be ordered on the basis of this. Even in the Birla case, one, the most of the payments are shown to have been made to Congress politicians. But one entry in the computer of the group President Shubhendra Amitabh says, 25 crores to Gujarat PM, and in bracket itself, 12 paid, 13 to be paid, something like that. Now, normally you would have expected this government, that is the Modi government, to have jumped to an investigation showing payments to Mr. Modi had been mentioning that in the Ministry of Environment, there was this JNP tax. Many of the payments apparently were made to JNP natural in that. But because of this one entry of 25 crores to Mr. Modi, nothing was allowed to be investigated. The whole case was stone walled, and the gentleman in the income tax department who was in charge of the recovery of all these documents, who was heading the investigation department of income tax, he just buried the papers, did not send them to the CDI, even after this detailed appraisal report prepared by his own department. He doesn't send it to the CDI for investigation, that here are clear brides shown to have been paid, but he doesn't send it. As soon as we started getting this information that these documents were recovered, and that they have been buried by this gentleman, Mr. K. Chaudhary, who today happens to be the chief vigilant commissioner. At that very time, I started tweeting about it, that I am hearing that this gentleman is likely to be appointed as the CDI, and this is what I have come to know, that he was in charge of burying these papers which were recovered. Mr. Getsumalani wrote a detailed letter to the prime minister. I wrote the letter, by which time I had also found out that this gentleman was involved in the stock gurus' camp, where the income tax people had been brought in one investigation that they were doing in this. Or rather, the CDI had been investigating the stock gurus' camp, in which income tax officials were bribe by this company called Stock Guru, which was in the stock market. And that entry regarding his going to meet Mr. Ranjeet Sinha had to do, must have had to do, with this particular investigation where officials directly working under him were being investigated in that stock gurus' camp by the CDI. So this gentleman, who varies all this information on the paper, he is appointed by Chief Britishers Commissioner. We also challenge his appointments. That's saying that ultimately, you see this Birla Sahara application, as well as the challenge to the appointment of the CDI. All came to be dismissed by that one particular judge called Justice Arun Mishra. No, not there. And this Justice Arun Mishra, we found, was very close to the BJP, so much so that it is in the wedding that he celebrated of his nephew at his residence. He had invited all the top BJP leaders, including Shivraj Singh Johan, who were named in the diary as the recipient of 10 crores. And there is a photograph which was published in the local newspaper showing Shivraj Singh Johan at the residence of Justice Arun Mishra and warrior at his nephew's wedding. Now, this being the case, and he dismisses all of these, that TVC challenge, he dismisses on the basis of some documents handed over to him by the government in a sealed cover. And he says, yes, yes, government has looked into all these charges, et cetera. Everything has been found to be OK. And on that basis, he dismisses the application. What happens in Kalikopul? In Kalikopul, as you've been told, a former chief minister of Arun Archer commits suicide at the site of the place where his body is found hanging, 10 copies of his 40-page suicide note duly signed on each copy, on each page of each copy, by him is found. The lieutenant governor of Arun Archer writes, Mr. Rajeshwar, I think, writes to the government, writes to the central government saying that this suicide note contains very, very serious allegations of bribery of Supreme Court judges, senior Supreme Court judges, and various other people. And suicide note is like a dying declaration, which is entitled to be treated with great seriousness. And therefore, please have this investigation. But nothing is done. No investigation. And typically, the life of this Kalikopul approaches the Supreme Court, approaches the Chief Justice because there is a judgment of the Supreme Court in Veeraswamy's case that no investigation can be done against a judge without the prior permission of the Chief Justice. Now, by this time, one of the gentlemen who was named, there were two judges who were named as having taken a bribe or having asked for a bribe, one of them had become the Chief Justice. So this wife wrote a letter to the Chief Justice saying that, look, I'm having to write to you because that judgment says that the permission of the Chief Justice should be obtained. However, you are yourself going to be the subject matter of this investigation. As is your successor, therefore, please send it to the next judge's in line for deciding whether an FIR and an investigation needs to be done in this case or not. And what this Chief Justice does is, instead of sending it to the next judge's in seniority, he immediately listed before Court No. 12. Court No. 12, he straight away goes down the line through 11 judges, goes to the 12th judge and listed before him. Why? Because that judge happens to be a gentleman who was a very, very close personal friend and who had spent his entire life in the same court, that is the Punjab and Ariana High Court, and who was a very close personal friend of that Chief Justice. That's when Mr. Pushyant Agar who was appearing in the matter seeks to withdraw that application. What these cases, it's a brilliant job that has been done. It's a document of record, which will be a reference book and a document of reference for all scholars, all researchers, all journalists in the time to come about these cases. It's a very, very thoroughly documented book. And what it shows among the other lessons to be learned from all judges, firstly, that there's business of political funding. You see, all that Birla Sara was showing was that 25 crores and 40 crores and 10 crores cash, all cash has been given to these people. We have been saying today most political parties are showing that 90% of the donations received by them is in the form of cash. We have been saying for a long time, Mr. Modi says that I did demonetization in order to make a cashless society where ordinary people transact their entire business through banking channels, et cetera. I've been saying that one forgets ordinary people, but at least political parties and candidates should be made to go cashless. You must have a law which says that all donations, all expenditure by political parties and candidates should only be through banking channels, but that has not been done. In fact, the opposite has been done where you have not only freed political parties to receive foreign funding by amending the FDRS, but you have also introduced this non-transparent instrument called Electoral Bond by which you can anonymously donate even through banking channels, you can anonymously donate to political parties. The second thing that lesson that it shows is that there is a lack of money that we are from a judgment that doesn't deal with what should be done, doesn't effectively deal with what should be done if the allegation is against the judges. It should have said that it will go to the next judge in seniority. Unfortunately, it felt that then the president can confront such other judges and decide. We had sent a complaint to the vice president also because the note contained allegations against the then sitting president, Mr. Pranam Mukherjee as well. So therefore, we had sent the complaint to the vice president, but unfortunately, he also didn't do anything about it. Currently, there is clearly, this clearly shows the need for having a judicial complaint, the authority on the lines of the local, you need to have a judicial local. Of course, even this local has not been appointed, but what we have been saying for a very long time is that the treatment system is totally bogus. It's not practical, not possible. Instead of that, you need to have a full-time judicial complaint authority to deal with complaints against it. Third is the whole business of master of process that keeps justice, seeing the master of process, he can arbitrarily assign any case to anybody that he wants. We have seen this problem happening in all these cases. Even the Birla Sahara case was sent to judge number 10, a justice around Mitra. And one last thing, you see, there are various ways of influencing judges. One of them is post-Europe, post-retirement jobs, but this government has invented a totally normal way, which is to blackmail them by getting some evidence collected against them through the enforcement agencies like CBI, et cetera, CBI enforcement directorate, et cetera. This government has specialized in blackmailing opposition leaders, various other persons, including unfortunately judges as well, by collecting information against them through the CBI, et cetera. So these are some of the lessons to be learned from all this. Thank you very much. Thank you, Pratap. This is a very important book. And the two stories it tells are two very different stories, actually. The both stories are corruption, but they're two very different stories. The first story is one of alleged bribery by big companies, by the Birla Sahara group of various political marchers. But let us be clear, very often, you know, this is, we speak today of the BJP because the BJP is in power, but this is very much a document that implicates both of the biggest parties. And I think this is very important to remember. The reason I think that this is very important is because the issue that it speaks to is an issue that is in almost the design of our liberal democracy. Because our liberal democracy is silent on this issue. When we speak of individuals, right, when we speak of, you know, even in our constitution, this great document with, you know, if I identify with any document that's last, I identify as a constitutionalist more than not a nationalist. So the constitutionalism is more than anything else. When you speak of individual rights and you are silent on structural issues and whether you're not your masters or not, the masters critique of liberalism, I think is the fact that gives rise to the kind of nexus that affects not only the environment, that affects the daily life of small people and that affects the everyday governance of whichever viable party that is used to elect. The reason that they are viable is because of the money itself. When you see pictures of a candidate on the top, on the front page of every single newspaper, not because that headline has been earned for any reason but because it has been paid for. Then you have to wonder where that money is coming from. This document is a document that also speaks at a time when it is absolutely vital to speak. The reason that it is vital is because it is a document that shows how our institutions have failed that spectacularly. First, the CVS, for example, in the documentation of the website, the CVS forms the way the CVS is to constitute. For some reason, and perhaps to become clear, the income tax department does do its job and does proceed further. However, when this comes up, at the highest level, it gets knocked out. My interest is very much, yes, of course, in this case, but in the structure of democracy that we need to look at and we need to examine and that the only thing left, it's the only thing left is for writers and journalists to document it as to the people. What is it that the people must ask for? What is it that we must ask for? I think that in the run-up to the 2019 election and not just that, in the state elections as well, I think one of the most important things to ask for, something that goes to the heart of all of these, of many of these problems, of all of these problems, of many of these problems is electoral finance. We saw the obtaining of money legally by the top two parties through the amendments of the foreign exchange, from the FBI there. The foreign contribution is that. And there was a complete, it was fast without much of a debate, really, and it was fast almost without being noticed. And that is legal campaign finance. So this is now foreign companies can donate to a very significant extent legally to the larger political parties. This is a document of the illegal donation. What is the solution? We just don't talk about it enough. Some countries that have clean assistance much, much cleaner than us, think of partial campaign finance given by the state. So partial electoral finance given by the state. And there are reasons that they don't get complete electoral finance because the competition reduces in so many people's terms. This, I think, is a debate that we really, really need to start having. And I think the second thing is that when the showdown just came out and spoke in the Dan Loya case, those problems have not been completely addressed. Again, it's a structural problem. This is not to be on any particular dial at all. But again, this is a structural problem. You know, the older dial is that justice must not only be done, but must seem to be done. It's something that we don't even say it today. And why don't we even say it? Because now there is a shamelessness in governance and there is a shamelessness as a democracy. That is so deeply saddening. But I think that deconstructing institutions with structural that do not feel and if it's such a thing, people like, people like Poranjoy and Shoraya. And Shoraya, you've done a really great job. I must congratulate you. And of course, Poranjoy. And the challenge that you show is vital. I also want to say as a last comment that the reason that people don't write these books is because the law of criminal decimation, for example, was upheld. It's a law that I and many others had challenged in the Supreme Court. And there is a story of Ben Chalice in Narkees. We were not afforded to be for this term which I will not go into present time. But the law of criminal decimation still exists and needs to be referred vitally to a nine judge bench. The last book of Poranjoy that I was on the final on, that he had written about was on strategic lawsuits against public participation. Where concrete groups to journalists and writers for hundreds and hundreds of scrolls. And you know, I told you, I'm sure it goes over. And that is another sort of stick. That's another stick that must be limited and must be regulated. Because then when institutions fail, we certainly don't want even these people to be silent. They have done, they've taken a very important step and they're questioning in the back of putting the allegations that they have made here and the allegations are founded on the basically they are asking for the investigation. They are saying that the number of people here, they have, they read the particular standards of investigations to be made. And this is something that is clearly covered under the Reynolds defense. The Reynolds defense is one of the standards in English law which is be brought into our law in the wonderful judgment. The NSP versus Money Life, where Money Life that asked to the very strong but pointed questions to the mass of Stock Exchange, was in a destination suit by the Stock Exchange was given 50 lakhs. Money Life was given 50 lakhs for the trouble that they went through. A lot of these, a lot of the holding of democracy happens because citizens speak at this and that question. And these I think question as which is the point where questions, protests, speaking, looking for answers is extremely important. Thank you. We've been, we've been, we've been. Amya and Paranjaya have produced, have produced the fascinating work of investigators in the room. It's a complex book, the narrative runs at several levels and divides into many strands going back and forth in time. But in the process, they give an intricate tapestry which depicts a dystopian image of an ecosystem in which you see the organs of the various organs of the state and a big business, in an illicit relationship. All the organs are compromised. The book raises some difficult questions to which there are no easy answers. But the very act of formulating those questions is the Marigold Yes Act because that constitutes the first step in a collective quest for tradition. Prashant and Dinesh Imedi have read at length on the legal issues involved. Prashant has also brought out all the important facts that are covered by this book, so I'm not dwell on them. But it leaves, the narrative leaves two questions uppermost in the mind of the reader. The first question is the state of, sometimes the state of the Indian polity. Why do we have the kind of phenomena that has been documented in this book? Huge fashions of cash stumbling out of covered capital corporate offices, transactions involving hundreds of course recorded in medical details in a spreadsheet with all the particulars of the recipient and the delivery of cash, state, sign and everything. That has been hinted at the insatiable cash sheets of the political system is what is driving this phenomenon. And the cases covered in this book gave presenting a rare opportunity of setting things right and ending the Indian polity of this surge of political corruption, but it was an opportunity that was made. This also has been hinted at them, so I'm not going into those details. But for our part, I'm speaking on behalf of Common Core, we are doing what we can. We have challenged the varieties of the amendments that have been made to the finance act, to the People's Representation Act, to SCRA and all the institutions in the world that governs political contributions along with media that have been educated in the Supreme Court and the Constitution of the Court. But one is not very sure, one is not very hopeful of the outcome going by the trend of the recent judgment. Again, they have been accredited that the different institutions have found a very effective device of saving the effects for it. So a lot of folks have been hinted on the current issues, particularly after the various acts of holding the fair function in January this year. But then it should also be remembered that the deportment changes after one exceeds two an office. So while outside the office one can take a position, but responsibilities of office have a very sobering effect on the behavior of the state that one might display when not holding the office. So we are keeping our fingers crossed and we are not particularly hopeful of the outcome, but then this is all that one could attack. The other question is about the role of the institutions of government. Now the one lever that the executives have, the most significant lever is the unfettered power of appointment and nomination to the institutions of government. Again, this is an area where common thoughts have been making to change the rules of the game, to have the rules of game change. But then the search has not been successful. We started with the institution of the comptroller and the auditor general of India from the time of Mr. K. Bishore. And then we followed it up again when an opportunity presented itself. This time because we were part by the data to the public foundation. And then third time as individuals, a group of public individuals including my friend, we joined hands and find the petition to be enforced challenging the arbitrariness inherent in the appointment of the CNAB. But the outcome has been consistent and every time the Supreme Court on a very, very technical issue has thrown out the petition. Because the position that the Supreme Court has adopted is a very serious position. They say that the constitution does not have any provision for laying down any qualifications for the CNAB for laying down the procedures of the appointment and the executive decision is an untrammeled one and they can do whatever they like. That is the system and system of the verdict of the Supreme Court. Now we have seen over time that the executive displays a marked difference for a compromise candidate because obviously such candidates are expected to be beholden to the powers that be for the favour shown by giving them an undeserved appointment and then secondly the dossier that the government has on their past unanimance also makes them very pleasant and makes them show the position line which is also the stress of initiating action or to pass them. So in this manner the institutions of government are undermined systematically and that is happening with absolute brazenness There was a reference to the challenge that was made to the appointment of the CDC Now you look at the irony the CDC is the agency that exercises the superintendent over the CBI which is the principal investigating agency in matters of corruption and the CDC is an integrity institution there was a lot of enthusiasm and optimism generated by the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of P.J. Thomas whose appointment as the CDC was canonized by CBI and Common Court whose appointment as the CDC was challenged by CBI and Common Court new students of integrity of institutions were laid down but that judgment like many other judgments has remained a dead letter because what has followed that they have seen that in the case of K.V. Chaudhary and Bakim whose appointment as the Commissioner of the CBI and Common Court has challenged there was a very, very serious allegation against K.V. Chaudhary there was a serious allegation against documented evidence against Mr. Bakim but the Supreme Court chose not to interfere with the appointment and they were attacked and you see the role that was played by the CDC in the CBI matter which has come to boil recently you see the role that was played by the CDC in the Zahara-Belda Diaries so this has been happening so institutions are being systematically undermined everywhere we have seen this matter between the political executive big business top professionals of bureaucracy getting richer and richer we have seen institutions being hollowed out of their substance so one doesn't know how to address the problem elections are around the corner it is the held that the electorate can exercise an effective control over the court of events once in five years so that time is coming around I do not know how I have no way of reading the theories and predicting future but let's see whether all this information all this documented history of these cases which has been covered in these books is going to influence the outcome of the election one can only hope so I would again like to compliment the author for doing such a thorough job they have adhered to the whole fact while presenting the story in a way which makes it a stranger than fiction but then it is whatever has been stated in the book is absolute verity and nothing else thank you this is the first rate book and it is the first rate and it is a great tribute to Sarnia and to Karendra for having written this book and by taking us through three cases the Vrla paper, the Sahara paper and to Pulsar notes they have actually conclusively demonstrated this nexus between politicians I would say lawyer, justice and by our side on many of these issues they have shown how we are also a part of the same nexus as we are generally and that is nexus is at every level, it is in every institution it is in every region it starts across political parties it starts across professions it is really this business of the the biblical state that when the salt of the earth has lost its saltiness with what shall things be called to that is our problem today that is why everybody is as a victim give me a clear idea of Karendra in kumar mayhem which is the position of this whole issue is that by the 1970s it has become clear that if under the Indian socialism has just become Indian patronage and people could grow in India only by access to the state and the expectation was that if you free see people see how one would run they would be faster to grow secondly, that there would be regularly institutions which would be independent and which would keep the people within the bounds of public interest and the third was that there would be two classes which would be which would be always the propellers of reform because they would be their creativity would be inhibited by by a by a frozen or a of a lifeless state and these were the entrepreneurs and the middle class and as this book shows and as I will experience every day shows that it should be speaking even today the entrepreneurs remain in the same world that you grow by access to persons in the state the only exception in the last few years in the last two and a half decades has been the IT sector as just one note that that because the state they could notice that they grew on their own but otherwise if you see any of these big business houses and now the houses are becoming big like Ramdev like there is Ravishankar Adani all these persons are again because of their access to the state that they are able to grow very fast and it is in that sense that the book documents so well that the book that the provided underlying reforms have turned out to be wrong those provided the persons like me so the issue there is a serious issue and with those patients it is a very fine way to attract our attention to that you see in a bound diary or a bound book I can use code so that if I am taking the money Mr. Devati is paying the money to Arun Chowdhary but he always uses the name of Jaiswal and therefore and that code of Jaiswal means Arun Chowdhary is actually kept in some states in Bahamas so when the documents are discovered you also have taken the money but actually it is Arun Chowdhary who has taken the money so it was for this reason that in the Jain Mawala case I correct me if I am wrong and the senior advocate to correct me that it was there that yes they are evidence but they are the reason for further investigation now in these cases as Prashant explained to us there is a sort of great insist insist which will detail who gave the money on what they were through whom and so on and they they met other documents of that particular company and in the case of code again it was a time deterioration therefore it is a very specific thing that in such and such contract the deterioration was in procuring such and such documents so much money was paid now here was time of the case you could see the court could have said yes we would like to see whether there is 5 random cases and see if the facts are borne out the allocations here are borne out by evidence but they chose not to do so at all in contravention of their many previous justice and the second thing that comes to in this career and the program in book is how easy it is these things are justified you see the cash which is recovered how do they say the entries which are there they are detailed entries so this is the entry of these are the these are fabricated papers produced by one employee this one employee so as to defend his boss and everybody used to accept that they won't use to accept that similarly the cash our name is the private cash the private cash was used by his investment 50 crore 80% how can it be the quotes from this then you just transfer and the income back officer is just transfer but just see the same thing happen in the case of repress in the price negotiating committee they increased the benchmark price by 40% to 50% I get and 3 officers objected and one officer wrote a details and what did they do they just asked the officer to go on leave and the person who was the strict officer was just made the secretary of the UPSC and was dismissed by another person who facilitated the the course of this note of raising the price without any justification and she became the youngest repressor of the UPSC so you just do this what is the difficulty here if you follow the course of this note across positions it is not just the civil servant but the role of lawyers in all this there is not many a scandal in India which has not been facilitated but it has been facilitated and by this very big companies like Waterhouse and Jones that they will be audited all these are being audited regularly and there is not a big criminal who has not been able to get a big lawyer all the society is being journalist unfortunately it extends up to the judges after all people from they are from among us and they accept patiently false claims of all these characters and they do not use the powers that they have for instance on perjury whether in the Saurabhudin murder case I think it was probably now by now 53 or some people have to resign similarly the obvious evidence in the case of I mean so much how many people have died on natural death but they do not look at it so the judges become a part of this whole problem and I will just say one thing about the teachers that come out and then the judges to what is the one sovereign strategy that we have and that is one is the cascading effect of all these people in the Quranic context it is a reminder the global attack of Sadhapai we should be taking an example his application was well known in the electricity direction and you make him the electricity and in the next round he is the judge today he is the judge on other world in effect the cancer cells are spread by the doctors themselves at the input from one button into a higher body. And unfortunately, the Muslims in all this, in a democracy, the only counterweight could have been the media. But unfortunately, we have become a part of the same establishment. And it is not just that we can't go on claiming that yes, now big business has entered the media. Therefore, we don't have seen them. But it is just masses praise that they appear as giants because we are on our knees. That is our problem. We do not use, just as the judges do not use the power of consent, sorry, power of, again, virtually to curb it. We in journalism do not use the power that we can still do. I don't think any owner would have stopped us from analyzing the defense budget in detail. But you show me the last analysis in the main line paper, other than Ajay Shukla and others, a few persons who do just an analysis of the defense budget. We just don't do it. So, and that is why, that's my final point, is the illusion that he suffers from. That one person will save us from another person. Can I mention Gandhi, Santiago Gandhi ko rokeri. But the fact of the matter is that that institution has been substituted to the same processes of that, you know, if a one institution will save us from the territorial differences of a ruler. But the fact of the matter is that the institution has been substituted to the same processes of wrath, which have enabled or which have facilitated to acquire those parts at the top. This is our problem. And that is why I find that this solution always in such a manner has to come from outside. It has to come from individual. And it has to come from, if I may use an old phrase I have written about this almost thirty years ago about some marginal men. Her sources here, when Mr. T. P. H. Gill was made in charge of the Punjab police. The fact is that there was no Punjab police. It had evaporated. He started the fight as an individual and mobilizing individuals. And then a force came up. There was no judiciary. In the same phase, this fight against the way the things have become now has to come from individuals as it can only come from the marginal individuals. Because if you are very big in this particular system then naturally you are a part of that system. That's why you are big in this particular system. And for under his work, story of work, the work of Prashant Bhushan, the work of common cause, this shows that actually speaking one individual, a small well can make a difference. That is the great hope that we have to rest on and even if it doesn't come true there is never any success of failure in this matter. I'll give you one example and then just come to two precautions which I think we should be marginal men should take. The example is of what Gandhi ji said in Champara. You see he, as you remember the condition of Indigo cultivators has become very poor and there was such a grad and he would also switch his demand at the minimum. His demand was set up a committee, please set up a committee to examine the condition of these Indigo cultivators. Not just these. There is no failure in that. Why? Because if the British government sets up a committee, then it will bench the British Empire, the poor presence will bench the British Empire. And if it does not set up the committee then your point is proven. You will not even make a committee. So what do you think of my point? Similarly, if book sites like Sharia and foreigners book have an effect, wonderful, if they don't have an effect, they wear, they hold a mirror to us about the space to which our country has reached that it stills a very good service. So I think it has to come from marginal men and it will fix. There is no success of failure in their efforts. But I would suggest two very small, it was very small suggestion. There are two prerequisites of this kind of work. One is that one must be absolutely truthful. Because if we, even by error, make a small mistake or if we switch it, even one fact, the jacks who are incongenious by our distortion will latch onto that fact and destroy our entire facility. And the second is that we should all be a little humble. Because one thing that happens when you take up such work is that you start feeling, that is, that is, that is, that is, that is my honest. That is not the case. And I am very glad that in this question of the book, I say this because I come in for some, for some, for nicely marginal, what we call, censure at one point myself in the particular book. So I say this, that it is a wonderful thing that in this book Sharia and Tarantula have steps to the facts. Every single paragraph has been very documented. It is based on the document that nobody can deny. And therefore they have done a great service to journalism and to all of us. Thank you very, very much. Thank you.