New Delhi: On July 20 this year, three people from Arunachal Pradesh were picked up in a joint swoop by the Delhi Police’sspecial branch and the Arunachal Pradesh Police from a flat in Safdarjung Enclave.A day later, the Arunachal Times daily carried a short news item with the headline ‘3 arrested for sharing a morphed picture of CM’.Those arrested were not named in the news report; nor the sections under which they were arrested, except that all three were from Arunachal. Stating the reason for the arrest, the report had said, “Earlier on Tuesday [July 20], one Tadar Kayu, a resident of Naharlagun, lodged an FIR, claiming that some people were sharing objectionable morphed pictures of the CM [Pema Khandu] on WhatsApp and that he had also received the picture from an unknown number.”Though the arrest was a joint operation with the Delhi Police, the news fell through the cracks in the national media. Nevertheless, the single-column story published in the Arunachal Times on July 21 gained significance when Nabam Tagam, an Itanagar-based social activist, told this correspondent that he was one of the three persons picked up by state police from that rented accommodation in Delhi on July 20 while on a visit to the national capital “on official work”.Tagam, as the chairman of Arunachal Pradesh Justice Forum (APJF), had, this past March, filed a writ petition (criminal) in the Supreme Court seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into multiple charges of corruption brought against the BJP chief minister of the state, Pema Khandu. On April 19, a three-judge bench of the apex court led by Justice R.F. Nariman (who has since retired) held its first hearing in the case.Tagam told The Wire that he and his associate from APJF, Yamra Taya, were arrested within three months of the SC’s decision to accept their petition. And, while the main accused in the case – Kipa Robniyang – was charged under the Information Technology Act and some other bailable offences under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) by the Arunachal police, Tagam said Taya and he were charged with Section 124A (sedition) and Section 121A (conspiracy to commit offences punishable by section 121) too.“The three of us were picked up around 11-11:30 am from the rented accommodation in Delhi on July 20. IPS officer and superintendent of police (special investigation team) Rohit Rajbir Singh led the four-member state police team to the place with officers of the Delhi Police special cell. They kept us in Delhi for two days before the Saket local court granted the transit order. On July 22, we were taken to Itanagar,” recounted Nabam Tagam.As to his association with Kipa Robniyang, the main accused in the case, Tagam told The Wire, “He asked if he could stay with me and Taya in Delhi for some days; I agreed because I have known him for a long time. Kipa told us that he needed a mobile phone for his daughter’s online schooling, without which she was finding difficulty in studying. So, Taya bought him a handset and I bought a SIM card for the phone. That we bought him a phone and a SIM card which purportedly was used to circulate the nude photo of the chief minister on social media by Kipa allowed the police to implicate us in the case too, claiming that we were complicit in the crime, which was an absolute lie.”Arunachal Pradesh Justice Forum head Nabam Tagam. Photo: By arrangementTagam said Kipa was the convener of the state BJP cultural wing but was recently thrown out of the party, apparently at the behest of the chief minister. “He must have been angry at the chief minister for that reason,” added Tagam.Top sources in the state BJP unit corroborated Tagam’s claim that Kipa was the state BJP cultural convener to The Wire, adding, “He had been a member of the BJP for over 20 years; he began with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad years ago; also served as a public relations officer of sorts for (the now Union law minister) Kiren Rijiju at one time. We have heard that he circulated that morphed photo of the CM in a WhatsApp group out of anger for being thrown out of the party without any notice or the party leadership seeking any clarification from him at the behest of someone (the chief minister) who only recently joined the party.”Tagam underlined, “While we were not even the main accused in the case, both of us were termed anti-national under 124A. While Taya and I were in the custody of the police for 14 days in terrible conditions and another 14 days in judicial custody at the central jail in Arunachal, Kipa was released from jail. This only makes us conclude that the action against us was vendetta for filing the case in the Supreme Court against the chief minister, a point we highlighted in our bail application.”Tagam’s wife Toko Sheetal also filed a petition in the Supreme Court on August 8 seeking the duo’s release. In the petition, she categorically stated that the arrest was carried out at the behest of respondent no 4” in the main petition, Khandu, “wherein he (Tagam) has not committed any offence except highlighting the corruptions of respondent no 4” and that “various allegations including sedition” have been slapped on him.In several states, including in the Northeast, sedition has increasingly been misused to target activists and journalists who question the government of the day. This is the first known case during the BJP’s time in power in Arunachal.“Since Kipa was staying with us, we were projected as fighting the case in the SC only because we may belong to a BJP camp opposed to the CM. But the petition was filed in public interest as part of our organisation’s work,” Tagam said. While in custody, he said, “All we were asked was, who would be the next chief minister of Arunachal.”Tagam said 26 civil society organisations, including his, had written to Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana on August 25 seeking his intervention for a speedy hearing of the case. A few weeks before, Tagam wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi too, highlighting various allegations of “bribery” against Khandu and the assembly speaker Pasang Dorjee Sona.Opposing the bail of Tagam and Taya at the lower court in Arunachal, the state SIT also named another WhatsApp group, ‘Mission 2021 core committee’, stating that the duo were its members. “The group was created to oust the present chief minister of the state,” the SIT told a local court at Yupia in Papum Pare district. Since a photo of an AK-47 rifle was uploaded by a member in that group, the SIT, as per the bail order, had claimed that it “must have been purchased by the group.” A business transaction between Taya and a state BJP leader Gojen Gadi, now suspended “at Khandu’s behest”, was also presented as part of the ‘conspiracy’ to topple the chief minister.Suspension order against Tapak Lendo, Gichak Thaji Kiogi and Gojen Gadi.Since the case is still ongoing, Tagam didn’t want to comment on it. But according to the bail order, he is to take permission from the case investigating officer (IO) Tishi Vijay at any time he wishes to travel to Delhi (or out of the state) to pursue the case in the Supreme Court. “I had to take permission from the IO to come to Delhi this time. It was granted to me because I had to come here to drop my son at his educational institute and also to check my health after a stressful stay in jail,” he said. Taya, who is also in Delhi, also needed to take permission from the IO to leave the state.Growing rumblings in the BJPWhile the Arunachal Times report had said that the FIR against the circulation of the morphed video was lodged on July 20, the timing seems odd. This does not explain how the state police team was already present in the National Capital to make the arrests on that day, particularly because the state doesn’t have any direct commercial air connectivity with New Delhi. Upon probing the matter, it becomes clear that the FIR against “the owner/user of phone number 99584xxxxx” was also lodged at the police headquarters in Itanagar by state BJP vice president Tarh Tarak and general secretary and MLA from Namsai, Zignu Namchom, on July 18. The state SIT must have acted on that FIR.A copy of that FIR, seen by The Wire, said, the complaint was filed for not only “spreading derogatory and false and edited pictures and messages” against the chief minister but also for creating a group on WhatsApp “by the name of ‘Hot News’ where he [Kipa] has added several people without their consent”.On August 12, after his release from jail, Kipa, speaking to local media in Itanagar, named Tarh Tarak as the person who had signed off his expulsion letter as the head of the party’s disciplinary committee. “In any party, a member is issued a show-cause notice and allowed to defend himself. In the BJP too, such a provision is followed. But in Arunachal, no such procedure has been adhered to. I was suddenly thrown out because I said the Khandu government is not functioning properly,” he told APN Live 24 news channel.In a long chat with the local news channel, Kipa’s biggest grouse was, “Old BJP leaders are being shown the door by the party at the behest of new ones.”“Khandu skipped to the BJP from the Congress to the NCP to the People’s Party of Arunachal. If his DNA is checked, it will be of the Congress… I want to ask BJP leaders, will you run the party on its ideology or on the basis of someone who came from the Congress?… if this is the way the party leaders allow the BJP to be run in Arunachal, in 2024, the party will be nowhere,” he said.This past August 4, aside from Gojen Gadi, two other BJP leaders were suspended from the party, including Tapak Lendo, the state BJP vice president. Lendo’s post was given to one of the leaders who filed the FIR against Kipa – Tarh Tarak, seen close to the chief minister. Sources in the state unit of the BJP told The Wire that those suspended from the party were also being seen as part of the “Rijiju camp.”“Kipa is seen to be close to Rijiju. Khandu is also getting rid of all senior leaders in the party with some excuse or the other and filling up the party top posts with those who are in his camp and will not ask him any questions. This is happening in full view of the national leadership,” sources said.The developments only highlight serious squabbles within the Arunachal BJP, an aspect that seems to have a direct link to the July 20 arrests.What is the corruption case?The former BJP leader Kipa, in that TV chat on August 12, had also added that both Tagam and Taya must be released from custody as “they are not anti-national, innocent and have nothing to do with my case.”On August 17, they were released by the local court at Yupia. “The police wanted another 14-day custody for us; clearly to keep us in jail so that we can’t pursue the case in the SC,” alleged Tagam.Arunachal Pradesh Justice Forum general secretary Yamra Taya. Photo: Special arrangementIn the last hearing, Justice Nariman had clubbed the APJF’s petition with two other pending petitions from 2010 on similar issues, where Khandu is accused of multiple alleged scams to benefit himself and his immediate family running into crores of public money. While one of the 2010 cases is a special leave petition (civil) filed by Voluntary Arunachal Sena against the state of Arunachal and others, the other, also a civil writ petition, was filed by one Rahul Aggarwal, a resident of Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, against a judgment given by the Arunachal Pradesh bench of the Gauhati high court in 2010 absolving, principally, Khandu’s father and former state chief minister Dorjee Khandu, and his cousin and now BJP MLA Jambey Tashi, from alleged corruption in some Union government schemes.A perusal of the documents by The Wire shows that while Pema Khandu had filed a counter affidavit in the Voluntary Arunachal Sena case denying all allegations and seeking the quashing of the petition, Tashi had done the same for Aggarwal’s petition. The denials in both the counter-affidavits are the same: “willful and deliberate misrepresentation of the facts (and “material facts”) by the petitioner in the SLP”; “necessary parties not impleaded”; “three fact-finding teams found out that there was no illegality” etc. Above all, they banked on the 2010 Gauhati high court’s dismissal of a petition with similar charges, stating in the counter-affidavits that it was done by the petitioner with political motives as he belonged to “a small group of political rivals” of Dorjee Khandu.The Gauhati HC caseThe SC petitions in 2010, as also that of Tagam, are essentially a follow-up of a PIL filed by two persons – Borang Lama and Bote Yuto in the Arunachal bench of the Gauhati HC in 2007. While Lama was then the district Congress president of Tawang, Yuto was a social activist. The duo too sought a CBI inquiry into allegations of corruption against Dorjee Khandu, then Arunachal chief minister, and his family, citing at least seven counts of alleged misappropriation of public funds and other irregularities. That petition not had named Pema Khandu, a respondent, as a beneficiary to some of the alleged malpractices carried out by the father but also his cousin Jambey Tashi.Principally, the allegations against Dorjee Khandu were misuse and misappropriation of funds under the National Calamity Contingency Fund and Calamity Relief Fund; and also malpractices in carriage, distribution and in raising false carriage bills for head load with regard to 24,800 metric tonnes of rice sent to the state under the Union government scheme Sampoorna Grameen Rojgar Yojana (SGRY), which allegedly resulted in siphoning off funds to the amount of Rs 68.4 crore.The allegations against Dorjee Khandu in the SGRY case had created a ripple not only in the state but also in neighbouring Assam, as some newspapers there had carried reports accusing the Arunachal government of “selling the rice in black markets” in Assam. A voluminous report compiled by a fact-finding committee of the BJP on Arunachal prior to the 2014 elections, which this correspondent had seen, had also gone into great detail not only on alleged irregularities around this scheme but also on various other “corrupt practices” of Dorjee Khandu and Pema Khandu including in the hydroelectric projects in the state. That was, but, prior to Pema Khandu moved lock stock and barrel from the Congress with fellow MLAs, first to the People’s Party of Arunachal (PPA) and then to the BJP in December 2016.In 2004, soon after the allegations against the Dorjee Khandu government caught public attention, former chief minister of Arunachal Mukut Mithi, in a letter to the state chief secretary, had sought an inquiry into the matter. While the alleged SGRY scam had taken place when Dorjee Khandu was the minister for relief and rehabilitation and disaster management in the Gegong Apang government, by then, he had become the state chief minister. In 2004, prior to filing the PIL at the Gauhati HC in 2007, Borang Lama had also written to the secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs and the Central Vigilance Commission on “major misappropriation” in the National Calamity Contingency Fund in Arunachal and furnished cheque numbers of at least 16 payments made by the state government, into which he sought an investigation. The money that was transferred through those cheques, according to the letter, a copy of which is with The Wire, stands at Rs 3,54,70,348. All the 16 payments were shown to have been made to relatives of Dorjee Khandu, such as Pema Khandu and R.D. Construction, a company owned by his nephew Jambey Tashi in the name of one of Dorjee Khandu’s wives, Rinchin Droma. Yet another list of payments to these persons and companies under some other schemes was shown as Rs 30 lakh.In that letter, Lama also highlighted the “misappropriation and mismanagement” of additional food grains allotted to Arunachal under SGRY to the flood-affected Tawang district between 2003-2004.An allegation made in Lama’s petition was that Dorjee Khandu, as the minister, had then not floated any tender to carry out the transportation and given the large contract instead to a company in one of his wife’s names. In reply to the Gauhati HC, the state government had, however, named three other companies which had apparently filed tender for the SGRY work. At least one of those companies, Sela Transport, Tawang, is owned by the Khandu family.Three enquiry committees were set up during the Dorjee Khandu chief ministership to probe the matter, including by a Group Captain of the Indian Air Force, D.C. Bakshi. Each gave a clean chit to the chief minister. Lama questioned the reports in his petition and claimed that Bakshi was not even taken to the places on the ground to verify whether there were any beneficiaries of the SGRY scheme.Curiously, Lama, who had so actively pursued the allegations, had suddenly stopped appearing in the case, leading the Gauhati HC to eventually dismiss it in favour of the accused.Both the 2010 SLPs were filed in the SC to challenge that Gauhati HC order, also adding newer allegations of corruption against the Khandu family. Tagam’s petition too, with similar allegations, has now been added to the pending cases for a detailed hearing by the SC.Dorjee Khandu. Photo: Planning Commission/Wikimedia Commons, GODL-India,Status of the caseSince the last hearing of Tagam’s petition on April 19, when Justice Nariman and Justices B.R. Gavai and Hrishikesh Roy decided to tag it to the other petitions as one consolidated case, it has seen at least 17 deferments.“The SC website shows it in its listing but then on that day it gets postponed; I don’t know why it is happening in our case, or if it happening only in our case,” said Tagam. Asked about it, the petitioner’s lawyer, I.M. Quddussi, said, “This long delay in fixing a date for the next hearing could be because of the virtual hearing. The list is computer generated. But not more than 15 cases are heard in a day; so those after that get postponed,” he said.As per the latest SC register, the next date of hearing for the case is October 5. Tagam said, “I am keeping my fingers crossed because when a hearing takes place, only then a new three-member bench will be announced for the case as Justice Nariman has retired in August.”
