1971 Nagarwala scandal

On May 24, 1971 , Rs 60 lakh was withdrawn from the State Bank of India and given to a “man from Bangladesh” after the chief cashier at the ParliamentStreet branch in New Delhi got a call purportedly from Indira Gandhi then Prime Minister of India asking him to do so.

Later it was found out Rustom Sohrab Nagarwala, a former Indian intelligence agent got the money from Chief Cashier Ved Prakash Malhotra by "mimicking the voice of Mrs. Indira Gandhi".

The opposition parties suspected that the money belonged to Indira Gandhi. They also alleged that it was not an isolated case.

The investigating officer, D. K. Kashyap, investigating the case was killed in a car attack. Rustom Sohrab Nagarwala died in prison.

A Commission of Inquiry was set up by Janata Party under Justice P. Jaganmohan Reddy on June 9, 1977, to probe into the Nagarwala case.

Justice Jaganmohan Reddy listed four "incontrovertible facts" - one of them being the fact that Indira Gandhi did not have any account in that branch - but concluded that they were not sufficient to hold that the money belonged to her. "There were several lacunae," he said, and listed them. "To supply an answer to these (lacunae) would force me to leave the safe haven of facts which required to be established by evidence and enter the realm of conjectures and speculation." (p. 176).

External links

* [http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:ENOMQMcZZccJ:www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1517/15171170.htm+nagarwala+60+lakhs&hl=en&gl=nz&ct=clnk&cd=1]
* [http://www.telegraphindia.com/1030627/asp/nation/story_2107442.asp]