BHUTTO's TREACHERY- A Historical fACT
FRONTLINEVolume 24 - Issue 1 :
02-15,2007INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU
Bhutto's Treachery A.G.NOORANI
ZULFIKAR ALI BHUTTO was one of those
persons who, however talented, were inherently incapable
of being truthful.
He was treacherous to India, his
country of birth, and simultaneously to Pakistan, the
country of adoption.
In India, he pursued cases to
establish that he was an Indian citizen, whose properties could
not be declared evacuee property, while
pursuing, around the same
period, claims for compensation
in Pakistan as its citizen
who had lost properties in India.
Ayub Khan's Diaries have two entries of
March 3 and June 30, 1967. One of them reads
thus: "Certain documents from India came into my
hands, stating that Mr. Bhutto had been, till 1958, claiming
that he was an Indian citizen and that he was staying
in Karachi only
temporarily. I have asked for further confirmation. It just
shows how unscrupulous and soulless this man
is."
The second entry reads: "An awkward
question was asked in the National Assembly. Up to the time he
became a Minister in 1958, Bhutto had been declaring before the
Indian courts that he was an Indian citizen residing
in Karachi. The object was to
get some compensation for the property left by his parents
in India. In fact, he was
selling his soul for about one lakh fifty thousand
rupees.
All this was not known to us till
recently when the matter was discussed in the Indian Parliament
and came out in that press."
The official report of the proceedings in
the Rajya Sabha on November 19, 1965 (Vol. LIV; No.12) and court
records establish the charge incontestably. Mahavir Tyagi, the
Minister for Rehabilitation,
said: "Shri Z.A. Bhutto, Minister for External
Affairs, in Pakistan was a resident
of Bombay along with his
parents at the time of Partition and owned properties
there.
He was declared as an evacuee on
6th July, 1949 by the Deputy Custodian and his properties were
taken over as evacuee property. Shri Bhutto contested the
declaration order in various proceedings taken by him before the
Custodian, Custodian General, Bombay and Punjab High Court and
ultimately before the Supreme Court of India for 9
years.
While on the one hand
he was contesting the decision that he was an evacuee and
disowned any connection with Pakistan, its nationality or
domicile, on the other hand he had filed an application in
Pakistan as an evacuee, claiming payment of a court deposit
lying with the High Court, Bombay.
However, in November 1958, the
year in which he became a Minister in Pakistan and took oath of
secrecy there, on a petition made by Shri Z.A. Bhutto that he
had then settled in Pakistan and that his appeal be dismissed as
withdrawn, the Supreme Court granted the prayer and passed an
order accordingly.
"Extracts from his various
petitions and statements recorded in the course of proceedings
are contained in the statement which I place on the Table of the
House (See Appendix XLIV, Annexure No.
19)."
Those documents reveal a lot. He gave the
details to the Deputy Custodian of Evacuee
Property on
oath on July 27, 1949 and to the
Custodian on November 17, 1951: "After passing the Senior
Cambridge examination, the applicant on or about 8th September
1947, left for the United States of America from Bombay where he
had been permanently
residing.
The applicant further says that when he
so left for abroad on 8th September,
1947, he did so on an Indian
passport."
On July 27,
1949, he had said
earlier, also on
oath: "I do not know when my mother or
sisters left Bombay. I made applications
to several universities from 1945 onwards. My father received
replies from them. I returned to Karachi after 10 years.
My education was in Bombay. I am not residing
in Karachi."
In his appeal to the Custodian-General on
January 30, 1956, he described himself as temporarily residing in
Karachi. "The applicant
was sui
juris and had attained majority and
merely because the applicant's parents resided
inKarachi and his marriage
took place there, it did not follow therefrom that the
applicant's home was also in Karachi."
He added in his appeal: "That the learned
Custodian failed to appreciate that the applicant went to
the United States of
America as an Indian national on an Indian
passport and continued to be an
Indian national at the relevant time.
That the learned Custodian erred
in holding without any evidence on record that the applicant
after obtaining majority has at any relevant time accepted
Karachi as his domicile."
On September 11,
1957, he filed an appeal in the Supreme Court
of India praying that all
the proceedings against him as evacuee be quashed. He became in
1957 a member of Pakistan's delegation to the
United Nations General Assembly, which commences its session in
September every year. He became a member of Ayub Khan's Cabinet
as Minister of Commerce in 1958. He withdrew his appeal in the
Supreme Court stating "that the petitioner is,
however, now settled
in Karachi and does not
propose to prosecute appeal No. 489 of 1957 pending in this
honourable court any further". That was on August 13, 1958. The
Court allowed the withdrawal on November 3, 1958. He had become
a member of Ayub Khan's Cabinet three weeks
earlier.
Before that he wrote
an obsequious letter to President Iskandar Mirza in April 1958
from Geneva, where he
had Pakistan's delegation to the
Conference on the Law of the Sea. He wrote: "When the history of
our country is written by objective
historians, your name will be
placed even before that of Mr. Jinnah. I say this because I
mean to, and not because you are the President of my country"
(emphasis added,
throughout).
Meanwhile in Pakistan, Bhutto was
pursuing his claims under the Registration of Claims Act, 1955.
He filed them in 1956. He owned the Astoria Hotel at Churchgate
in Bombay and the proceeds of a bungalow, `My Nest,' at Worli
which his father, Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto had
sold.
He was Dewan of Junagadh, which
acceded to Pakistan in August 1947. In November 1947, Sir Shah
Nawaz settled down in
Karachi.
In the claim that he filed,
Bhutto assessed the value of the Astoria Hotel in Bombay at
Rs.12 lakh and that of the house at Rs.1,40,000. The Claims
Officer, however, verified the first claim for Rs.3,93,952; as
to the second, he held that he was entitled to securities of the
value of Rs.1,40,000.
Bhutto appealed to the Deputy
Claims Commissioner who, by his order dated October 6, 1956,
raised the value of the hotel for purposes of compensation to
Rs.9,97,991. This enhancement of nearly Rs.6 lakh did not
satisfy Bhutto. He went in revision to the Claims Commissioner,
who, applying the revised compensation formula approved by the
government (40 times the gross annual rental in 1946), assessed
the capital value of the property at
Rs.44,30,400.
This final order was
passed on September 18, 1957 - exactly one
week after Bhutto submitted his appeal to the Supreme Court
of India claiming as an
Indian citizen the same property against which he was
simultaneously claiming compensation in Pakistan as a Pakistani
citizen. All this for filthy
lucre
Tariq Khattak, Islamabad, Pakistan.
GSM = 0300-9599007 and 0333-9599007
Email: Tariqgulkhattak@gmail.com
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