NEW DELHI: The Finance Ministry went into a tizzy recently, with the revelation that Union Minister of State Ramesh war Thakur had directed officials to send a note in plain brown envelopes to Congress members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee inquiring into the securities scandal.

It is learnt that Finance Minister Manmohan Singh called Thakur to seek an explanation about his actions, Sources claimed that Dr.Singh was unaware about his junior minister’s moves in this regard.

“He has been caught with his pants down,” remarked a North Block official about Thakur’s ham-handed move to selectively control the flow of information to JPC. “It was a major goof up,” observed another official.

The officials were of the view that a clear inference could be drawn that  certain Ministers were not interested in the JPC knowing details about their bank accounts and personal investments in stocks and shares. “It seems that they have something to hide,” a bureaucrat remarked.

The legalistic position taken by the Finance Ministry that it had not officially issued instructions to Ministers to disclose their investments would fool nobody, it was felt. Nor was it clear what would be served by asking the Ministry of Home Affairs to provide information on the subject, it was said. After the scam became known, the Prime Minister had asked all members of his Council of Ministers to disclose details about their investments in shares. When newspapers published the text of the questionnaire issued by P. Narasimha Rao, the story had not been denied, the sources pointed out. Even sources close to Thakur reluctantly admitted that an impropriety may have been committed since the note was sent only to ruling party members of JPC bypassing the Committees secretariat and also the note did not carry any forwarding note indicating where it had come from.

The sources close to the Minister of State tried to play down the controversy by claiming the note was an “innocuous” one, “There is not much substance in that note that is germane to the inquiry,” it was claimed.

The sources added that the note was merely a “status paper” indicating which documents could be made available by the Finance Ministry to the JPC and that it would “eventually have gone to all the members.

Article extracted from this publication >> September 18, 1992