Andy...Who?

Andaleeb (Andy) Sehgal, who has been directly linked in the Volcker report with illegal surcharge payments in Iraq, is one of the closest friends of Jagat Singh, son of Natwar Singh, from his schooldays. His father, Suman Sehgal, belongs to a well-known Delhi business family, and has long been in the rupee-rouble trading business with Russia. The son extended their business links to the Arab world through his firm Hamdan Export, which, according to the report, deposited $748,540 in a Jordan bank—money that then reached the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy alleges that Hamdan Export is, in fact, a front company Jagat uses for various transactions and deals.

Apart from their old friendship, Andy and Jagat also share a Jordan connection. Both travelled twice to Jordan in 2001, within days of each other, and when Jagat's half-Jordanian wife Natasha committed suicide two years ago, it was Andy who went to the hospital to bring her body home. According to Delhi social buzz, Andy's sister has been in a close relationship with Jagat for some years.

Andy and his wife Suhani are well-connected members of Delhi's elite circles. Suhani is Khushwant Singh's grand-niece, and the daughter of Raja Vijay Singh of Nalagarh, who was a Congress minister in the Himachal government. She runs a successful designer clothes and jewellery business from Sujan Singh Park. The tenant at her mother's Sujan Singh Park flat is former Congress MP Jayanti Natarajan.