New Delhi: A Special Court, which acquitted controversial Godman Chandraswamy in the 1990 St Kitts forgery case today (Oct 25, 2004), pinned the blame on two senior officers in the Indian Consulate in New York for the "entire mischief".

"The entire mischief of this case lay in the attestation of the forged (bank) documents by the Indian Consul," Special Judge Dinesh Dayal said in his 23-page judgement.

"The unmindful act of Deepak Sen Gupta (the then Deputy Consul General at New York) and R K Rai (the then Consul General) in attesting the documents without following proper procedures could have had far reaching consequences and affected the entire political scene," the court said. The court noted that Gupta attested two statements of persons who never appeared before him to make those statements, while Rai attested copies of documents without having seen the originals.

Gupta and Rai attested documents under the seal of Consul General of India in contravention of all established norms, the court observed.

Coming down heavily on the duo, the court said, "The power of attestation is given to responsible senior officers who are supposed to exercise the same with due care and caution."

"The false attestation of these documents by such senior officers resulted in giving a colour of authenticity to the whole story. We now know that the documents were forged and the statements were false," the court said.