Bhandari refuses to name Vajpayee's 'associate' in Volcker case

NEW DELHI: Former Governor Romesh Bhandari on Monday refused to comply with the demand made by Atal Bihari Vajpayee's foster son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya to say he was not the "close associate" of the former Prime Minister whom he (Bhandari) had accused of involvement in Iraqi oil deals.
Responding to the legal notice issued by Bhattacharya, Bhandari, who was also India's Ambassador to Iraq, also declined to name the person he had in mind as Vajpayee's "close associate" saying he would officially pass on the information to the Justice R S Pathak Committee set up to probe the scam.
"The Prime Minister and those connected with him in a sense are all subject to scrutiny and are public servants. There can be no punishable libel in rspect of such persons unless the statements are made with express malice", he said.
"I have acted in complete honesty and respected the right of the Press and the right of the people to know what was available to me as information", Bhandari said in his two-page reply.
In an interview to newsweekly Outlook, Bhandari had alleged that a "close associate" of Vajpayee was involved in the oil deals but had refused to name the person.
Following the publication of the weekly which put the interview on the cover with his photographs alongwith that of Vajpayee, Bhattacharya issued a legal notice to Bhandari asking him to categorically state that Bhattacharya was not the 'close associate' he had in mind.
It also asked him to have the "honesty of conviction" and name the person he had in mind.