In an exclusive conversation with ‘The Garhwa Post‘, a senior advocate of Supreme Court of India, ‘Ashwini Upadhyay’ revealed that he finally moved the Apex Court, seeking concrete action on the Vohra Committee Report submitted in 1993. In his plea, he also demanded that the report carries 111 pages to be taken out in public domain and let the free and fair investigation to take place under the supervision of Lokpal.
Advocate Upadhyay also called for special courts to be set up to expeditiously try such all cases referred to in the Vohra report. According to him, it was conceivable for the SC to address the “systemic problem” of criminalization of politics without breaching the principle of separation of powers.
Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay made a stunning claim that only 11 pages of the report were made public and the rest was kept classified. He has sought the Apex Court to direct various authorities to make Vohra committee report public and also reveal the names of the criminals, politicians and public servants who were in involved with the underworld mafia in Mumbai.
In his petition, Upadhyay sought a direction to the Home Secretary to handover a true copy of the Vohra Committee Report along with annexures and notes to the Director NIA, CBI, ED, IB, NCB, R&W and CBDT.
What is Vohra Committee, and What, It Had Revealed?
The NN Vohra committee was set up after the 1993 Mumbai blasts in a bid to take stock of the nexus developed over the years between mafia organisations and politicians as well as government functionaries. The committee also had members from RAW, the IB as well as the CBI and all of them had unanimously views that during the 1993 bomb blasts, the criminal network in Mumbai was virtually running a parallel government.
The NN Vohra committee submitted its report to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) dated on 5 October 1993, three months after it was established on 9 July 1993 in the aftermath of the 1993 Bombay bomb blasts. In a shocking disclosure, the report had allegedly mentioning that many leaders from the Congress party, who were in powerful positions in Maharashtra and Gujarat in the 1990s had developed close relations with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his henchman Iqbal Mirchi.
Few copies of the report were subsequently made public on 1 August 1995 in Parliament but only limited to 11 pages. However, it was later revealed that the original report was close to 100 pages. Incidentally, the 11 pages that were made public in 1995, had only one name – that of Iqbal Mirchi.
Dinesh Trivedi, who was the then Rajya Sabha MP in 1995, had asked the Minister for Home Affairs saying that it was not releasing the entire report as then the individuals who helped the criminals would become identifiable. Later on, Trivedi moved to the Supreme Court, seeking the release of the documents, but couldn’t succeeded.
Vohra Committee Report Named Top Political Leadership and Bureaucrats
As per the Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials, the report includes the names of leading politicians and bureaucrats who were the key players who assisted the underworld between 1970s to 1993.
Few media have reported via Intelligence sources that Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) was given a lot of information that was collected by the IB which was then submitted to the Vohra committee. According to IB officials, mostly politicians were from Gujarat and Maharashtra who are still active in politics even now and they are still connected with the mafia.
Nexus Among Politicians, Govt Agencies and Bollywood
The 1993 NN Vohra report had asserted that some mafia elements have shifted all government agencies such as narcotics, drugs and weapon smuggling etc.
The NN Vohra Committee report had also stated that the cost of contesting elections made politicians depend on the underworld network. The 1993 bomb blasts in Mumbai and following communal violence in Surat and Ahmedabad showed that the underworld exploited Pakistan’s ISI network in India to stoke communal tension in India.
“The investigations into the Bombay bomb blast cases have revealed extensive linkages of the underworld in the various governmental agencies, political circles, business sector and the film world,” the report stated.