In a tragic turn of events, George Fernandes, former Defence Minister passed away earlier today on January 29. Earlier, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, the ‘rebel leader’ took his last breathe at 7 AM in Delhi.
George Mathew Fernandes’ journey from being an ‘Underdog’ to a ‘Giant Killer’ is the most notable one. He became a national figure for the first time after defeating powerful Congress leader, SK Patil (had a reputation of being undefeatable) in 1967 parliamentary elections from the South Bombay constituency. From there, the ‘trade unionist’ never turned back and won 9 elections during the period of 1967 to 2004.
In a long and illustrious carrier extending over almost for four decades, Fernandes touched all the milestones of success that one can imagine. But like any other voyage, his path was too full of ups and downs. The former Union Minister was also accused of alleged corruption in the purchase of coffins, broadly known as ‘Coffin Gate’.
It all started when during 1999 Kargil war, the then NDA government led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee decided to make a purchase of standardized aluminum caskets for carrying mortal remains of martyrs in a more dignified manner. The ‘Coffin Gate’, if at all it can be called one, was an allegation against the Government of India that the coffins bought for the martyrs of Kargil were heavily overpriced and caused a loss of $1,87,000 to the exchequer. The caskets were purchased from Buitron and Baiza, a company based in the United States of America rendering funeral services at $2500 per casket, which was presumed to be 13 times inflated than their original price.
However, the ambassador from both the countries India and the United States of America later did give it in writing that those caskets had an actual cost worth 2,768$ each. But since George Fernandes was the Defence Minister of India at the time of Kargil war; political opponents accused him of direct involvement in the ‘Coffin Gate’ scam.
During those days it was a bureaucratic norm to not to forward purchase orders less than 5 crore rupees to minister’s desk. The noteworthy fact is the entire scam was of $1,87,000 i.e. of Rs 82,28,000 (as a dollar was equivalent to about Rs 44 at that time). Henceforth, directly accusing the Defence minister in ‘Coffin Gate’ was more of shortsightedness. Yet, the then Congress president, Sonia Gandhi herself took charge to protest against this alleged scam. Every time George Fernandes rose to speak in parliament he would be quelled down by the chorus of ‘Kafan Chor’ with Mrs. Gandhi leading the choir. The left-liberal establishment left no stone unturned to malign the then Defence Minister through the imaginary ‘Coffin Gate’ which was cooked up by the Congress-friendly media. Not only that, one of the former Congress MP, Rashid Alvi, even termed the Kargil War as “BJP’s war”.
George Fernandes though managed to give a statement in parliament where he said, “I was nowhere in the picture when the army went through the process of acquiring the caskets. The purchases were cleared at the level of the defence secretary. I learnt about the transaction only when the matter was raised in Parliament after the CAG report was submitted.”
Interestingly in consecutive UPA governments’ tenure, CBI filed its initial report and gave George Fernandes a clean-chit and absolved him of any involvement or wrongdoings in ‘Coffin Gate’. The CBI further investigated the case and filed a charge sheet against three Indian Army officers in August 2009. The agency lodged a case under sections 120-B (Criminal conspiracy) read with 420 (Cheating) of the IPC and under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act 1988.
In December 2013, a special CBI court found no evidence and hence discharged all the accused. The court also stated that there was no evidence to proceed against Victor Baiza, the middleman, in the purchase of aluminum coffins from the US suppliers.
Fernandes and everyone associated with the supposed scam were eventually exonerated from any sort of wrong-doings. Yet, political opponents had already taken the political mileage of allegations that they made out of thin air. There is no going back to it but justice somehow seems to have prevailed.