Examination of Witness (Questions 680
- 699)
TUESDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2001
MR SAROSH
ZAIWALLA
680. Do you think that was calculated to be
inaccurate?
(Mr Zaiwalla) I do not think I should comment on that.
681. Carelessly inaccurate?
(Mr Zaiwalla) Carelessly inaccurate.
682. Very carelessly in that it should have
been obvious that it was inaccurate?
(Mr Zaiwalla) I have gone on record. I think it was
grossly inaccurate because I have given my version of the event,
which is also with the Cabinet Secretary and the court.
683. You were saying how straightforward Ms
Fernandez/Mrs Vaz is and that you have complete confidence in
her. You were starting to elaborate on the points you would have
discussed.
(Mr Zaiwalla) It was at the British ambassador's residence.
The event was the Indo-EU Economic Summit. I said I was very concerned
that Mr Vaz had not responded to my inquiry or something of that
sort, because I can obtain a statement from him. She very openly
told me—it was not a privileged or confidential conversation—that
Miss *** did not have Mr Vaz's authority to produce this letter.
This was a very serious matter because that meant that the court
had been misled.
684. By?
(Mr Zaiwalla) By the applicant in the employment tribunal
dispute. This had become part of my grounds. I sought leave to
amend my appeal to the employment tribunal. I then wrote a letter
to Keith Vaz saying that Maria had said this to me. He then appointed
solicitors and ultimately I am pleased to say that, after the
matter went to the Cabinet Secretary, Mr Bindman wrote to me confirming
exactly what Maria had told me: that Mr Vaz had not authorised
her to use the copy of the letter for the Lord Chancellor's file,
signed by Mr Vaz.
685. Which matters? That he had not authorised
it? Was the letter hostile from your point of view?
(Mr Zaiwalla) Yes, in the employment tribunal litigation.
686. The fact he had written it did not worry
you; the fact that it appeared in court did?
(Mr Zaiwalla) From the point of view my application
for leave to appeal that was a relevant point, not as evidence.
It was not complaining directly against Mr Vaz but the circumstances
in which the applicant had misused her position and her closeness
to the Lord Chancellor's personal adviser to produce this evidence.
687. When you wrote to him about this, instead
of writing back to you, he took on legal advice?
(Mr Zaiwalla) Yes.
688. Would you not expect him just to pen a
reply to you saying, "This is what happened"?
(Mr Zaiwalla) I would have expected him to do so.
He first supported Mr Hart and then Bindman retracted after I
wrote to the Prime Minister a formal complaint under the parliamentary
ethics procedure. Then, surprise, surprise, a week later, after
I had got leave to appeal, there was an attempt to retract again.
That is a matter for the court to decide because I have got leave
to appeal and I am in court now.
689. Does it not sound like a bit of overkill?
Mr Bindman is a very reputable and I gather somewhat legitimately
costly lawyer. Does that not seem a bit of an over-reaction over
something as simple as that?
(Mr Zaiwalla) No, because I considered what happened
to be quite serious at the time, very serious. Unless you want
me to, I would not want to go into it.
Mr Williams: If it is not relevant to
the case, I do not. If it is, I do.
(Mrs Filkin) Mr Zaiwalla did, as the Committee knows,
tell me about this issue but asked that I did not take it forward,
so I did not, at his request. Obviously, the Committee may wish
to ask questions about it because these are two activities which
this inquiry and the other inquiry were running in parallel.
Mr Williams
690. If the Commissioner feels it is relevant,
we would like to know.
(Mr Zaiwalla) With the Chairman's permission, may
I correct the Commissioner? What happened was that the Commissioner
wrote to me that this was not a matter within her domain because
it related to ministerial conduct, not a Member of Parliament.
Chairman
691. Are you sure this matter is not sub
judice at the moment? Has it been set down for trial?
(Mr Zaiwalla) It has been set down for trial. I have
got leave to appeal.
692. It is not sub judice?
(Mr Zaiwalla) Yes.
Mr Campbell-Savours
693. Is that yes, it is not?
(Mr Zaiwalla) I would have thought that, being a Committee
of Parliament, you are governed by your own rules and you are
entitled to investigate all matters, but that is a matter for
you.
Mr Williams: Sub judice applies
to us as it does to anyone else.
Mr Bottomley: We adopt it; it is not
imposed on us.
Mr Foster: I think it is two distinct
things. If we are discussing Mr Vaz, that is not sub judice.
What is sub judice is the decision of the court that might
arise out of the issues Mr Zaiwalla has mentioned. If we keep
clear of the merits of his case, we can ask questions about Mr
Vaz's involvement.
Mr Williams
694. Would you like to expand on what you have
already told us?
(Mr Zaiwalla) I am in your hands. Things had heated
up between Mr Vaz and myself, not surprisingly, not because the
evidence of his was read out but because I thought it was inaccurate
and I complained to the Commissioner. The Commissioner correctly
told me that, as it concerned ministerial conduct and not a Member
of Parliament's conduct, she referred me to some resolution of
the House of Commons as to the code of conduct of ministers. I
obtained that code of conduct and that required me to write to
the Prime Minister because he is the sole judge on ministerial
conduct. I wrote to the Prime Minister with a copy to the Cabinet
Secretary. Mr Bindman came on the scene and I got a letter which
I expected should have come in the first place.
695. It was written in his role as a minister,
not in his role as an individual?
(Mr Zaiwalla) No, because he was a minister in the
Lord Chancellor's Department at the time.
696. He was not in the Lord Chancellor's Department;
he was PPS to the Attorney General. He was not a minister, so
he was not covered by the rules relating to ministerial conduct.
(Mr Zaiwalla) I may have it wrong but I think for
a short time he was a minister in the Lord Chancellor's Department.
697. This is really outside our area. You clearly
feel—I do not mean this unpleasantly—that you have
been a victim in this when you have seen turnover fall from ***
million to *** million in the space of a year.
(Mr Zaiwalla)—.
698. Yes, from *** million to *** a million,
***. That is over a million fall-off. Who do you feel has imposed
this hardship on you? Is it the press in misrepresentation or
what?
(Mr Zaiwalla) I think it is the press in misrepresentation.
As a citizen of this country, there is no adequate protection
for an individual like me, against whom a vendetta is undertaken
by another individual. A lot of my work comes from India. I am
quite well known in India because I represented the Bachchan brothers
in the Bofors libel action in the English court which my firm
won in the early 1990s. All the Indian press know me. One of them
said, "Baldry landed in soup because of Mr Zaiwalla"
and they all alleged that I was guilty of corrupt practices. For
a firm like mine, it is very difficult to give confidence to Indians
that I, as a British Asian, will be able to represent them in
the same way.
699. Could you have taken a libel action against
them because it was damaging you to that extent?
(Mr Zaiwalla) I cannot because these proceedings are
governed by rules of privilege. If they report anything concerning
these proceedings, it is under the rules of privilege. Unfortunately,
I think Mr Milne knows the system very well and in the Baldry
case he made personal allegations against me which were completely
wild. Those allegations were attached to your report and the newspapers
picked up those allegations which were entirely false and dishonest.
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