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Tehelka helped Pakistan, demoralised troops: Fernandes

In his deposition before the commission probing alleged corruption in defence deals, he asserted that the intentions of the news portal were "malafide and not noble".

The defence minister said that the only beneficiary was "our enemy and losers are defence personnel, morale of my country and morale of the troops".

Fernandes, who had resigned as the defence minister after the expose last year and was re-inducted within months in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre, said: "Their motives were against the defence ministry and the defence minister with objectives, which needed to be probed."

"Their malafide intentions were very clear," he said when cross-examined by Tehelka Counsel Siddharth Luthra.

If Tehelka had information of any corruption in the ministry, "they should have approached me. But no, they had assumed that the defence minister was corrupt", he said.

"They could have gone to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but according to them he was also involved in various money transactions," he said.

The portal "should have approached the Supreme Commander of the armed forces -- the President of India -- if they did not have faith in me or the prime minister on the whole issue", Fernandes said.

Fernandes arrived at the commission, housed in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, in his usual khadi kurta-payjama. The place was packed with journalists, government officials and counsel.

The deposition of Fernandes, who was assisted by a battery of lawyers headed by Fali Nariman, lasted nearly 90 minutes.

Fernandes denied that Samata Party president Jaya Jaitly had ever spoken to him about the Tehelka reporters, who were posing as arms dealers.

She had allegedly accepted Rs 200,000 from the reporters and promised to talk to the defence minister about them.

Fernandes said Jaitly was one of his most trusted colleagues.

"Jaitly is one of the finest political activists in the country at present. I have known her for last 25 years. She is a person of great distinction. We are proud of it," he said.

Denying that any rooms were given to the Samata Party at his official residence "as such", Fernandes, however, said in case of smaller political parties, the residence of the leader was also used as party office.

He said Jaitly and some secretaries were using his official residence.

About former Samata Party treasurer R K Jain, Fernandes admitted that he was appointed to the post sometime in 1997-98.

However, the defence minister said he did not remember how Jain was introduced to him.

"One conman met another conman," said Fernandes when asked about the tall claims made by Jain to Tehelka.

Fernandes said Jain ceased to be the party treasurer after the annual conference of the Samata Party and before the expose was made public in March 2001.

He also claimed that according to the Samata Party constitution, it was the party president who was important and not the treasurer.

Fernandes denied knowing Tehelka Managing Editor Tarun Tejpal and reporters Anirudh Bahal and Mathew Samuel.

Recollecting the events of March 13, when the expose was made public, Fernandes said he was doing roster duty in Parliament when he got a note from his office saying, "Something serious has happened. Please come to South Block at once."

"After reaching office, I saw that there were two tapes and some documents and tapes. They were dark, but there was some head movements and what got my attention immediately was the title at the bottom of the picture saying the defence Minister was beyond redemption."

"I went through the documents. As the same day there was a Cabinet meeting and prime minister wanted to know, my Cabinet colleagues wanted to know, what exactly it was. I had to brief the Cabinet... the whole thing [tapes and documents] was sham," Fernandes told the commission.

PTI

The Great Defence Scandal: Complete Coverage

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