Captured on film: lawyers ‘who wanted to buy off key witness’

June 1, 2007
Jeremy Page in Delhi

The independence of India’s courts has once again been called into question by a television sting operation in the case of an arms dealer’s son accused of killing six people while drink-driving.
NDTV, a popular private television channel, broadcast footage yesterday of defence and prosecution lawyers apparently colluding with the key witness in the case to try to get the defendant cleared.
The witness was the only one who had not “turned hostile” by switching from the prosecution to the defence in the continuing trial of Sanjeev Nanda, whose father is a retired naval officer turned arms dealer.
Mr Nanda, whose grandfather was head of the Indian Navy, is accused of killing six people when he crashed his BMW through a police check-point while drink-driving through Delhi in 1999.
Until yesterday, the 29-year-old graduate of the Insead and Wharton business schools, was widely expected to be acquitted, because rich and powerful Indians routinely pay off lawyers, witnesses and even judges to escape justice.
Sanjeev is managing director of Claridges Hotel in Delhi, which his family owns. His family also owns Crown Corporation, the arms dealers, and other businesses.
The sting operation could now change the outcome of the trial in the latest illustration of the power of India’s independent and increasingly competitive media.
The scandal comes five months after a media campaign helped to overturn the acquittal of Manu Sharma, a politician’s son who shot dead Jessica Lall, a model, after she refused to serve him drink at a Delhi party. Sharma’s father is Venod Sharma, a senior member of the ruling Congress party and, until he was forced to resign in October, energy minister in the northern state of Haryana.
Jessica Lall’s sister, Sabrina, who led the campaign for a retrial, said that it was a victory of justice over the corruption and nepotism that is rife in Indian political circles. “It’s a vindication for all of us,” she said.
In that case, too, a string of witnesses turned hostile. Sharma was eventually sentenced to life in prison in December.
The media also played a decisive role in securing a retrial of Santosh Kumar Singh, a policeman’s son who was originally acquitted of raping and murdering a law student in Delhi in 1996. Singh was sentenced to death in October.
NDTV said that it set up its latest sting after being approached by the key witness, Sunil Kulkarni, who said that he was under pressure from the defence and the prosecution to change his testimony.
It wired him up with a hidden camera, which filmed him allegedly discussing changing his testimony in exchange for money in separate meetings with the lead prosecutor and the head of the defence team.
The prosecution later dropped Mr Kulkarni as a witness.
Delhi police responded yesterday by asking for I. U. Khan, the prosecutor caught in the sting, to be replaced. Mr Khan denied any wrongdoing. “I have not done anything wrong, morally, socially or legally, which will enable them to initiate any action against me,” the Press Trust of India quoted him as saying.
R. K. Anand, the defence lawyer caught in the sting, also denied the allegations against him, accusing NDTV of using the footage out of context.
He said that he had “bumped into” Mr Kulkarni at the airport and “spoke with him about the cash in a sarcastic manner just to ward him off”.
Many of Delhi’s legal fraternity are unconvinced and some are even calling for the lawyers to be disbarred.
“Disciplinary action should be taken against both, as what they’ve done is not just unethical, it’s illegal,” said Indira Jaisingh, a prominent Supreme Court lawyer and civil rights activist. “I have to say that I don’t find it suprising or shocking. The Indian legal system has suffered great neglect for many years and ithas reached a stage where people do this sort of thing with impunity.”