NEW DELHI: President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday said his signature on the letter resigning from Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) was different from the one he generally affixed on formal documents but it was no forgery as alleged by defeated candidate Purno Sangma.
Mukherjee’s response came in an affidavit responding to Sangma’s petition seeking quashing of his election as president on the ground that he had held an office of profit while filing nomination papers as his resignation from the ISI chairman’s post was invalid given the “forgery” in signature.
Mukherjee said he, as many people do, on occasion signed his letters as P K Mukherjee and on formal documents put his signature as his full name, that is Pranab Mukherjee. “The signature on the resignation letter is his short signature,” the affidavit said.
But Sangma’s counsel, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, was in a combative mood and wanted the court to go into the merits of the allegations leveled in the election petition.
Attorney general G E Vahanvati and Mukherjee’s counsel, senior advocate Harish Salve, said the court must, as per its own rules, find out through a preliminary hearing whether Sangma’s petition disclosed substantial charges to merit a detailed hearing.
A five-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, P Sathasivam, S S Nijjar, J Chelameswar and Ranjan Gogoi agreed and told Jethmalani to cross the preliminary scrutiny hurdle on November 20, the next date for hearing.
To assure the court that there was no forgery of his signature in the resignation letter, Mukherjee said Sangma’s petition leveled an “allegation of forgery on the basis that there is a difference between signature of the respondent in the reply to the objection filed before the returning officer by Sangma and that contained in the resignation letter dated June 20”.
“This allegation is patently absurd. The respondent was in Delhi on June 20 when the resignation letter was sent to (ISI president) Prof M G K Menon on that day at Delhi, there was no occasion for anyone to forge the signature of the respondent,” Mukherjee said. “In any event, the position of chairman of ISI is not an office of profit in so far as the office does not enjoy any benefits and remuneration let alone any salary, emoluments, perks etc of any kind… the chairman has no executive role. As such, the disqualification under Article 58 of the Constitution does not apply to the said office,” he said.
Mukherjee said that on June 20, he not only resigned from the ISI chairperson’s post but also quit membership of Indian National Congress and all posts held by him in the party. He had also resigned from other posts – president of Rabindra Bharti Society, Kolkata; president of Nikhil Bharat Banga Sahitya Sammelan, New Delhi; and president of Kirnahar Kamadakinkar Memorial Society, Kolkata.
On June 16, he had resigned as chairman, trustee board of Dakshin Delhi Kalibari Association, R K Puram, New Delhi; on June 22 from chairman of the advisory committee of Indian Institute of Psychometry (IIP), Kolkata and trustee of Bidhan Memorial Trust, Kolkata; on June 27 from president of governing body of Lady Irwin Senior Secondary School.
Requesting the court to subject Sangma’s petition to a preliminary scrutiny, Mukherjee said, “The object of such hearing is to weed out petitions that do not raise questions worthy of trial by the Supreme Court, and merely because a petition purports to raise a factual issue (that is the allegation of forgery), no trial may be called for if the allegations are ex-facie non-serious.” (Agencies)