NEW DELHI: Both Houses of Parliament were rocked by CIB Director K. Madhavan’s request for pre-mature retirement, which the Opposition attributed to Government pressure on him to handle the investigations into the securities and bank scam in a certain manner.

Janata Dal leader V.P.Singh named in the Lok Sabha a high ranking official in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for exerting pressure on Madhavan. Speaker Shivraj Patil. However, he did not allow it go on record. In the Rajya Sabha, Chautala Mishra, quoting reliable sources, said Madhavan wanted to put names of two ministers on his file, but, the Prime Minister prevented him from doing so.

This charge was promptly denied by Home Minister S.B, Chavan’s as “untrue.”

V.P.Singh had not named the official initial but, came out with it after Communications Minister Rajesh Pilot, while denying charges of the Government wanting to go slow on the investigations, took exception to the officials being mentioned vaguely. He said that such officials should be named and “we will take action against them.”

BJP member S.S. Vaglela created a sensation by reading out a list of names of four Cabinet minister’s involved in the scam. Treasury bench members strongly opposed the member’s reading out the names unless he could authenticate the list.

Proceedings during question hour remained paralyzed with the entire Opposition accusing the Government of “pressurizing” Madhavan to quit, following disclosures that ministers were involved in the scam.

The issue was raised soon after the House met with the leader of the Opposition, L.K.Advani, and two former Prime Ministers, V.P.Singh and Chandra Shekhar, expressing concern over efforts to keep an “honest and upright” officer out of the probe and demanded that the Government give a commitment that he would be retained for continuing the investigations.

There were heated exchanges between the Opposition and ruling party members for the first five minutes and nothing could be heard in the din as the Opposition members insisted on suspension of the question tour,

Repeated efforts of the Speaker, Shivraj Patil, to carry on with the listed business failed with the leader of the Opposition telling him that normally he would have accepted the Speaker’s plea, but, this was an extraordinary matter over which members had “genuine grievances,”

Advani said the securities scam was the highest scandal in the history of independent India which had ruined tens of thousands of poor and middle class families and after the newspaper reports on Madhavan he had expected that the Government would have come suspension of the question hour to discuss the issue.

Reacting to the statement’s of the Minister, L.K Advani alleged that Madhavan had been asked not to put in black and white without the prior permission from the House Ministry the names of political leaders alleged to be involved in the scam.

In the Bofors issue also the Government’s intentions were doubtful, he said. He said the Government was trying to shield officials involved in the scam.

George Hemandes, JD, charged that attempts were being made to destroy evidence, connected with the scam.

What are Government’s intentions? he asked while demanding that the Prime Minister should give a categorical assurance that investigations into the scam would not be scuttled in any way.

Former Lok Sabha Speaker Rabi Ray also stated that the Prime Minister should be summoned to the House to clarify the Government’s position in this regard.

Nirmal Chatterjee, CPM, cautioned that wrong signals would be sent of such upright officers were not allowed to discharge their duties without any interference from the Government.

Basudey Acharya, CPM, said the Prime Minister should come to the House and make a statement on the circumstances which “forced” Madhavan to seek voluntary retirement

Earlier, the Opposition demanded that the Prime Minister be summoned to the House to make a statement on Madhavan’s resignation. They also demanded that the question hour be suspended and the resignation issue be taken up in discussion. At one state, A.B. Vajpayee (BJP) got up to protest against the attempts made to scuttle   the question hour.

Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 14, 1992