Constrained by the Supreme Court judgement halting divestment in public sector oil companies -- Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation -- Divestment Minister Arun Shourie will meet Law Minister Arun Jaitly in New Delhi on Thursday to consider options before the government and chalk out future strategy.
This is a prelude to the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Divestment on October 3 when the high-powered body chaired by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would take stock of the situation following the apex court's judgement, which Shourie has said would have serious repercussions on the sell off process.
Shourie's aggressive stance on the HPCL-BPCL divestment issue has been apparent from his recent statements on the SC verdict.
"On this principle (SC's September 16 judgement) divestment of all companies should be subject to clearance of Parliament. It cannot apply only to companies when you sell shares (to bring down government equity) from 51 per cent to 49 per cent because every single share has been paid out of the consolidated fund of India. So how even minority shares have been sold since 1991," Shourie had said last week.
Referring to the court's observation that because all expenditure from the consolidated fund was approved by Parliament and hence divestment could not take place without its approval, Shourie had said that this logic would apply not only to the two oil PSUs but also to companies set up under Acts of Parliament or nationalised in a similar manner.