New Delhi: Fourteen years after CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) registered a case in the St Kitts forgery, a Delhi court today (Oct 25, 2004) acquitted self-styled Godman Chandraswami for want of evidence that he conspired to tarnish the image of V P Singh by forging some documents to show that the former Premier was beneficiary of a secret foreign bank account in his son's name.

Special Judge Dinesh Dayal acquitted Chandraswami in the case saying there was no evidence against him.

Emerging from the courtroom, a beaming Chandraswami told reporters that he was happy with the verdict.

"I am happy that the way V P Singh Government tried to drag in former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's name did not work. I am more happy for Rajiv Gandhi. The truth has triumphed."

During the trial, Chandraswami had claimed that he was falsely implicated in the case by the V P Singh Government due to his proximity to Rajiv Gandhi and P V Narasimha Rao.

CBI had alleged that some political bigwigs had made an attempt in 1989 to sully V P Singh's image by forging certain documents to show that his son Ajeya Singh had a secret bank account of $ 21 million with the First Trust Corporation Bank in St Kitts islands.

V P Singh, then a Janata Dal leader, had emerged as the main political rival of Rajiv Gandhi, against whom he was campaigning on the Bofors issue after quitting his Government.

Chandraswami was the last person to be acquitted in the case. Former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and his Minister of State for External Affairs K K Tewary have already been discharged in the case.

The whole controversy started in August 1989 with the Kuwait-based 'Arab Times' carrying a report about the alleged bank account in the name of Ajeya Singh.

After the change of guard at the Centre following Congress' debacle in 1989 Lok Sabha polls, V P Singh became Prime Minister and CBI registered a case in May 1990.

The CBI probe found that the allegations of the "non-existent" bank account were floated by some "interested persons" to tarnish the image of V P Singh.

However, the case proceeded at snail's pace after Singh's Government fell in November 1990 following withdrawal of support to it by BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) after the arrest of L K Advani during the Ayodhya Rath Yatra. P V Narasimha Rao then became the Prime Minister and remained in office till May 1996.

Finally in September 1996, after Rao's exit, CBI chargesheeted Chandraswami, his aide Kailas Nath Agrawal alias 'Mamaji', Rao, K K Tewary and ex-director of enforcement directorate K L Verma.

Rao and Tewary were discharged by the trial court in June 1997 and the order was upheld by the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court.

In December 1996, the High Court had quashed proceedings against Verma saying the agency had not obtained the requisite sanction to prosecute him.

'Mamaji' died at the fag end of the trial in August this year, leaving Chandraswami, the lone accused in the case.