The second charge levelled against Tata Tea concerns the medical treatment provided by the company to Pranati Deka--alias Bonti Barua--the 36-year-old cultural secretary of the ULFA, who is married to ULFA's finance secretary Chittobon Hazarika. When Deka was arrested at the Mumbai airport in August, 1997, some letters she was carrying sparked a furore. For, dated between May 29, 1997, and August 14, 1997, these letters suggested that Tata Tea officials had booked rooms for her at Mumbai's Shalimar Hotel, and arranged for her childbirth-related treatment at Jaslok Hospital, bearing all expenses. A letter dated May 29, 1997--from K. Sridhar, branch manager (Mumbai), Tata Tea, to Shalimar Hotel--requested confirmation of "the bookings of two rooms in the name of Bonti Barua and Brojen Gogoi, arriving from Delhi morning/noon on June 2, 1997." Two days later, Shyama Ahuja of Shalimar Hotel wrote back to Sridhar, confirming the bookings and mentioning that "bills are forwarded for settlement by your company."

On May 29, 1997, Sridhar also wrote to Suresh Karnik, director (PR), Jaslok Hospital, requesting the hospital to "conduct a thorough examination of the patient, Mrs B. Barua, and commence treatment immediately as her blood count is very low and she is in the family way." And on August 14, 1997, M. Gautama, deputy general manager, Tata Tea, asked Karnik to shift Mrs Barua from a "B class room to an A class cabin."

Tata Tea's explanation: the expenses for Pranati Deka's treatment (Rs 35,000), and for her stay at Shalimar Hotel (Rs 15,000), were financed under its special medical scheme for people in Assam. Under this scheme, Rs 15 lakh is given every year to three hospitals--Mumbai's Tata Memorial Hospital, which specialises in cancer; Chennai's Shankara Nethralaya; and Calcutta's B.M. Birla Hospital, which specialises in heart ailments. Any Indian is entitled to free treatment--of upto Rs 5 lakh--in these hospitals.

On its part, the Assam police argues that Jaslok Hospital is not among the three hospitals where the scheme is applicable. Moreover, the scheme does not entail putting up the patient in a hotel, and only two people have benefited from the scheme this year, one of them being Deka.

Crucially, Tata Tea has not denied footing the bills, which were paid officially by cheque and shown in the books. Moreover, the company may not have known Deka's seniority in the ULFA. So, what the investigations have not been able to prove is that the company paid any cash at any time to either the ULFA or other militant organisations. Admits a senior police officer in Guwahati: "We have circumstantial evidence, but the clincher is missing."

However, it is on the third issue, which came to light after the publication of the secretly-taped transcripts of conversations, that Tata Tea may find its defence weak. Tangential, rather than pivotal, to the question of the company's guilt it may be, but if Brojen Gogoi, manager (community development programme), North India Plantations division of Tata Tea, was really being sheltered by the company's executives from arrest, the company could be in some trouble. Gogoi was wanted by the Assam police not because he was in charge of Tata Tea's social welfare projects in Assam, but because he and S.S. Dogra, the company's general manager (production), are believed to have travelled thrice to Bangkok in 1996 to meet Paresh Boruah. Dogra was arrested on September 16, 1997, in Guwahati. Besides, it was Gogoi who accompanied Deka to Mumbai. But he, the Assam police were informed by Tata Tea officials, was abroad at the time the police were looking for him. As a result, the investigators requested Interpol to locate Gogoi.

The damage was done by a statement attributed to Bombay Dyeing's Wadia, which he has officially denied, in the published transcripts of the Tata tapes. It said that Gogoi, contrary to Tata Tea's official stand--which was maintained by Krishna Kumar and Tata when they met Mahanta on September 15, 1997, in Delhi--was actually in the company's guest-house in Calcutta at the time. If that is true, the company's statement would amount to an infringement of the law. Of course, it is difficult to believe that Tata Tea would choose its own guest-house as a hiding place. bt's visits to Tata Tea's two official guest-houses, and one private residence where managers sometimes stay, yielded no concrete information: while Gogoi had not stayed at the guest-houses, according to the caretakers, the private residence was locked and uninhabited.

Three days after the transcripts were published, Tata Group spokespersons had neither denied nor confirmed Gogoi's Calcutta sojourn. However, the explanation proffered by well-known lawyer Ram Jethmalani, in an open letter to Mahanta, was that Gogoi had returned to the country--and stayed at the guest-house--without the senior managers being aware of it. Ergo, they were speaking in good faith. Adds Jethmalani in his open letter: "Mr Tata and Krishna Kumar did not lie to you (Mahanta); but if they had kept the whereabouts of Gogoi secret for some time, they would not have done anything wrong."

But even if Tata Tea turns out to be responsible on this count, that will not make the company automatically guilty of funding the militants. More important, the real issue will remain unsolved: just how are companies expected to do business when they, their employees, and their employees' families are facing constant threat and extortion--a situation that is not unique to Assam, and also extends to Delhi, Mumbai, western Uttar Pradesh, and parts of Andhra Pradesh?

Which ever direction l'affaire Tata Tea takes, the state of Assam will not gain if the tea business were to withdraw from the state. Its 850 tea estates not only employ 20 lakh people directly, but also yield Rs 1,700 crore in the form of agricultural income tax, sales tax, and leaf cess, over 70 per cent of which goes to the state exchequer. Likewise, the Central government's inability to take an uncompromising stance against a constituent of its coalition will show up in poor light. And, ultimately, it is militancy that will have gained--at the expense of business.