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Kapil Sibal moves privilege notice against Sinha

Senior Congress member Kapil Sibal on Tuesday moved a privilege notice in the Rajya Sabha against Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha for 'misleading' the House on the UTI muddle which chairman Krishan Kant agreed to consider.

Moving the notice soon after the question hour, Sibal said Sinha had misled the House during the course of his reply to a short duration discussion on the UTI fiasco by saying that the former UTI chairman P S Subramanyam had kept the finance ministry in the dark about the freeze of US-64 scheme on July 2.

But in the bail application of Subramanyan in a Bombay court it had been claimed that he had taken the decision on the advice of finance minister, Sibal said.

Sibal said a newspaper had extensively quoted the bail application as saying that Subramanyam had written to Sinha on May 18 and June 30 to apprise the government about the difficult situation and that he had met him on July 2 just before the UTI board meeting which took the decision.

The Congress member said Subramanyam also claimed that during that meeting with Sinha, the finance minister had advised him to either allow redemption of US-64 units at base price or suspend sale and repurchase of the flagship scheme.

Accordingly, the UTI board had decided to freeze US-64 for six months from July 2, Sibal said flaunting a certified copy of the bail application.

This observation of Subramanyam in the bail application was 'entirely contrary' to the statement of finance minister in the House in which he had said the former UTI chairman had kept him in the dark, Sibal said.

The government would only have been too willing to help the mutual fund to resolve the issue if only UTI chairman had posted the finance ministry with the correct position.

Also Sinha had said if government could take decision after July 2 to resolve the UTI issue, why not earlier if only it was posted with the correction situation.

"It was not lack of any desire but it was entirely because we were kept in the dark." Sibal quoted Sinha as saying in the House.

Responding to the notice, Sinha, who was present in the House, charged the Congress members with "flogging a dead horse only to get media attention".

Questioning Sibal for the raising the privilege issue late, Sinha said the news item appeared on August 4 and when the Congress had raised the issue once earlier on August 10, the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Santosh Gangwar had agreed that the government would respond.

"I was willing to respond to it on Tuesday last but unfortunately the House got adjourned that day," Sinha said regretting at that point of time there was no reference to any breach of privilege.

To this, Sibal said unlike Sinha he was cautious in slightly delaying in moving the privilege notice as he was awaiting a certified copy of the bail application which had been quoted verbatim by the newspaper.

The House also witnessed heated exchanges with BJP members strongly objecting Sibal quoting extensively from the bail application which they said was sub judice.

They also objected to Sibal making a detailed statement while moving the notice.

Kant said that the notice was under consideration and he would refer it to the Lok Sabha as Sinha being a member of the Lower House.

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