NEW DELHI: Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, a close ally of Narasimha Rao, fired his first salvo against the Prime Minister’s Office on June 26 when he asked Rao to sack his Principal Secretary A.N.Verma for colluding with a Calcutta stock broker and causing a loss of Rs 8,000 crore in the sale of public sector shares during 199193,
Naming Verma as the main conspirator in the deal, he said the “unpatriotic” decisions to sell the PSEs stock to mutual funds were taken by a “small coterie of officials without regard to any norms or reference to competent authorities.
Asked who the coconspirators in the deal were. Swamy named Verma’s brother in law, Indus ties Secretary Suresh Kumar, as one. “I don’t think Finance Secretary Montek Ahluwalia participated in the conspiracy but he was certainly a silent witness to it,” he added.
Even by a conservative estimate, the country had lost Rs 3,500 crore in 199192 and Rs 8,000 crore between 1991 and 1993 in the disinvestment deal of which a Citibank broker from Calcutta, Ajay Kayan, was the principal beneficiary, he said.
Article extracted from this publication >>July 2, 1993
