NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister, P.V.Narasimha Rao, told the Lok Sabha that on the basis of information ascertained individually from ministers, he could confidently say that no member of the Union council of ministers was involved in the bank scam. Therefore, the charge that the government was trying to interfere with the investigation to protect ministers and senior officers was baseless, the Prime Minister added. While making a brief intervention in the discussion on the bank scam, the Prime Minister sought to dispel the impression that the government could be blamed for the CBI joint director, K. Madhavan’s decision to quit.
No officer in the Prime Minister’s Office had interfered or brought pressure on Madhavan to go slow with the investigation against ministers and officers,” Rao said.
The Prime Minister retreated the government’s resolve not to spare anyone involved in the scam howsoever important or influential he might be. “The guilty shall be punished. There is no question of any attempt to protect the guilty,” Rao added.
The Prime Minister’s statement, made shortly before the House adjourned for lunch, was greeted with thumping of desks by the treasury benches. The statement was meant to rebut the charge leveled on the floor of the House recently by the Janata Dal leader, V.P. Singh, that an officer in the PMO had summoned Madhavan and asked him to soft-pedal the investigation.
The government’s clarification sought to set at rest the frequently made allegation regarding the suspected involvement of ministers and officers and repeated by almost every other member on the opposition benches. The Opposition leader, L.K.Advani, had alleged that three ministers had colluded in the stock market swindle.
Earlier, speaking during the resumed discussion on the bank scam, V.P. Singh, former Prime Minister, disclosed that Harshad Mehta, the prime suspect in the swindle, had met the finance secretary and held discussions with several other top ranking officials, The finance minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, who was present, confirmed Mehta’s meeting with the finance secretary but said he had no knowledge about his meetings with other officials,
The former Prime Minister said the fact that the architect of the biggest financial fraud had met the finance secretary before the formulation of the Union budget was a telling commentary on the state of affairs under the Congress rule. According to Singh, Mehta had free access to officials involved.
Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 14, 1992
