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.

• An account in Barclays Bank in the name of INDRUS Trading, owned by Aditya Khanna, was used to route the 5 cent per barrel commission from Masefield.

• Two Indian bank accounts were used by Sehgal to bring the money home— ‘Sehgal Consultants’ in Standard Chartered Bank, New Delhi, and Hamdaan Exports in State Bank of India, New Delhi.

• Coburg Associate SA, a mysterious entity whose role is unclear, received money from Indrus and transferred money to Hamdaan’s Indian accounts, through its Lloyds TSB, London.

Consider Contract 1 (M/09/54) under Pathak’s scanner. In this, Masefield paid $498,973 to Hamdaan’s Cyprus account that was wired to the Iraqi government’s account in Amman, as surcharge for 2 million barrels.

Masefield transferred $96,785 as the 5-cent commission per barrel to INDRUS Trading’s account.

Of this, $7,000 was transferred to Sehgal Consultants’ New Delhi account and $89,000 transferred to Coburg Associate SA.

Subsequently, Coburg transferred $40,000 in June 2001 and another sum of $3,793 in August 2001 to Hamdaan Exports’ SBI account in Delhi.

Whether the balance of over $45,000 remained in Coburg’s account or was transferred to some other entity later is not mentioned in the report.

In the second contract (M/10/57), Masefield transferred over $240,000 to Hamdaan Exports account in Cyprus to lift 1 million oil barrels.

Hamdaan wired $190,450 to the Iraqi government account. Of the balance, Hamdaan transferred $49,500 to Indrus account. Indrus paid a sum of $14,500 to a consultant, John Ball and transferred $17,500 to Hamdaan Exports’ Indian accounts.

The balance $17,500 remained with Indrus. According to Justice Pathak, Masefield paid Hamdaan Exports a total commission of $146,785, that was to be distributed between Sehgal and Khanna in the ratio of 4:1.

However, the report only accounts for $68,293 that were paid into accounts of Sehgal Consultants and Hamdaan Exports and $32,558 “retained” by Aditya Khanna. The beneficiary of the balance $45,934 remains unexplained.

Moreover, while Pathak states that Khanna received a total sum of $32,558 for his role, it only accounts for the $17,500 received by him for Contract No. 57. How he was paid the other $15,008 is another mystery.