Justice R S Pathak may have explained in detail how former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh misused his position to get oil contracts for his son’s friend but has not completed the financial trail. While he says there is no evidence of money leading to Natwar and his family, a question mark remains on an unaccounted sum of at least $61,000. And a mystery firm called Coburg.

Fixing this trail is the task cut out for the three government agencies asked to probe in the Action Taken Report: Central Board of Excise and Customs, the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Board of Taxes.

According to the report, the oil deal was a pact of cuts and commissions involving the Saddam regime, Andaleeb Sehgal’s Hamdaan Exports, Aditya Khanna’s Indrus Trading and Swiss oil major Masefield.

Masefield, the report says, would pay 30 cents extra on each oil barrel to Hamdaan, whose role was to get the contracts from Iraq. Of this, 25 cents went straight to Saddam’s account and the remaining 5 cents were split between Andaleeb and Aditya in the ratio of 4:1.

(Khanna introduced Masefield AG to Sehgal through a ‘liaison man’ called George Curmi).

Justice Pathak studied three contracts that were awarded to Hamdaan Exports, of which only two were finally executed.

A complex web of seven accounts and eight entities were involved:

• Masefield AG transferred money from its Chase Manhattan Bank account in New York to Hamdaan Exports A/c in Jordan National Bank, Cyprus

• Hamdaan transferred the 25 cent-per barrel surcharge to an Iraq government account in Jordan National Bank, Amman.

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