Monday, August 14 2006 18:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Indicted former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh today (Aug 14, 2006)virtually questioned the Pathak Authority giving a clean chit to the Congress party in the Iraqi oil contracts issue and accused the Justice Pathak of 'implicating' him and his son.



Exercising his right to personal explanation, he made a statement in Rajya Sabha in which he also said even if his letters of introduction were used to secure oil contracts, "these were legitimate contracts under the UN Oil for Food programme and there was no (rpt no) illegality committed by him in India or internationally.

In his seven-page statement, which was originally stated to be 16 pages, Singh referred to a paragraph in Pathak Authority report that stated that on Aug 21,2001 the Executive Director, Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO) wrote to the Oil Minister seeking approval of the allocation of one million barrels of crude oil "for the benefit of the Indian Congress Party.

After the approval by the Iraqi Oil Minister, this contract was also sent for the approval of the United Nation Overseer, Justice Pathak then says "Enigmatically: How the name of the Indian Congress Party came to be mentioned in this letter is not not known."

Singh asked, "This is precisely what he was required to find out. Instead of doing so, he surmises, as if he had entered the mind of the Iraqi authorities, that what appeared to be reason to him was that I and my son so projected ourselves that the Iraqi authorities formed the impression that we were representatives of the Congress party. This is mere conjecture on his party in order to implicate me and my son and does him no credit".