A 23-year-old due of ₹23 lakh

A 23-year-old due amount of around ₹23 lakh for using defence aircraft is still haunting the former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda.

The due amount, for using an aircraft for an election rally in Uttar Pradesh during his tenure as Prime Minister, has now grown to over ₹2 crore and his attempts to settle it have not been successful so far, according to Mr. Gowda.

The defence aircraft was used in 1996, and he first received a notice to pay up the money after 1999 when he lost the parliamentary elections. “The matter in Delhi High Court had reached finality and an agreement had been arrived at to pay. However, after the NDA government led by Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, the government submitted an affidavit. This led to the matter again being heard in a lower court,” he told The Hindu. He said the dues of the former Prime Ministers late Chandra Shekhar and late P.V. Narasimha Rao were pending too.

“I met Mr. Modi and it was good that he heard me. He even deployed an official of the Prime Minister’s Office to sort it out. The matter was even brought to the notice of Nirmala Sitharaman when she was the Defence Minister,” he said.

When asked if he would be paying the full amount, he said: “How can I pay the full amount now? I have been willing to pay ₹23 lakh for a long time. I cannot afford to pay that much [over ₹2 crore].”

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