New Delhi : The former External Affairs Minister, Natwar Singh, has admitted that he wrote to Iraqi authorities to help Andleeb Sehgal, a friend of his son Jagat Singh, and insisted that there was nothing wrong about it.

Indicted by the Pathak Authority of misusing his position, he told CNN-IBN on Friday night that he had told Mr. Justice Pathak that the signatures on the letters were his, but the language was not his.

"What's wrong with writing the letters. I write many letters. As a politician, it is my duty to promote trade... ," he said.

"Where is it specified"

"Even if I wrote those letters, where is it specified... give them oil contracts, give them vouchers, do this and other things? I have said he is a young man, he is coming to you. Please help him," Mr. Natwar Singh said justifying his letters.

Asked whether Mr. Sehgal getting the oil vouchers in the name of the Congress party could not be construed as acting as a middleman for him, he said the Swiss company Masefield AG had said it had not heard of his name.

"Have I signed any contract or have I got any voucher, have I got any receipt? Do I have a foreign bank account? Does my son have a foreign bank account?" "No," he said. Mr. Singh pointed an accusing finger at Finance Minister P. Chidambaram for the leakage of the Pathak Committee report and said that he should be asked to explain.

"The Enforcement Directorate is not with Manmohan Singh, not with Justice Pathak, but with the Finance Minister. The Prime Minister called his bluff [by saying he sent the report in the sealed cover to the Finance Minister]," he said.

Mr. Singh acknowledged that the Samajwadi Party and one or two other political parties had made offers to him to join them, but "I am not going to leave Congress."

"Do not drag Sonia Gandhi into this," he shot back when asked whether a "coterie" in the Congress was acting against him at the behest of the party president.

Jagat Singh, son of Natwar Singh, too conceded that his father wrote letters of introduction for Indian businessmen to do business in Iraq.

Talking to reporters, he asked: "... What else will a politician do with his letterheads. We don't make paper plates of our letterheads."

He denied that the Enforcement Directorate had impounded his Mercedes car. "I do not have a Mercedes and I challenge the ED authorities to produce evidence in support of the allegations."

He alleged that Mr. Chidambaram had given a "specific brief" to the ED regarding how to go about the investigations. Asked what he proposed to do against Mr. Chidambaram, he said: "He is the Goliath and me the David. I am leaving that to his conscience."

— UNI, PTI

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