The Delhi High Court today denied former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and his son Jagat access to all existing documents used by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in the ongoing probe into the money trail in the multimillion dollar Iraqi oil-for-food scam.

Rejecting the claims of the father-son duo for release of 83 documents compiled by Virendra Dayal, the Special Envoy to the US, and now in possession of the ED, Justice B D Ahamed observed that there is no prevalent law in the country which compels the prosecution to reveal all documentary evidence to the accused.

The court, however, noted that a move either by the legislature or the courts to oblige the accused persons with “full disclosure would be very welcome in this country”. “There is no doubt that disclosure of all the materials which goes to establish the innocence of an accused is the sine qua non (norm) of a fair trial. Unfortunately, the law as it stands today does not permit this court to give a ruling in favour of the petitioners (Singhs),” the Bench said.

Leaning heavily on Supreme Court’s ruling that the prosecution need not reveal the entire evidence collected even in cases involving preventive detention, the court said: “When the SC has taken such a stand even in matters affecting personal liberty, the same cannot be deviated from in the present case, which is merely an adjudicating proceeding and not even a full-fledged criminal trial.”

The court’s observations were reflective of detailed submissions by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) P P Malhotra that ED proceedings cannot be compared with a criminal trial as “no criminality is attached to it...”.

... contd.