The Hindu : Cancellation and controversy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 17, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Cancellation and controversy

IT OUGHT TO have been clear from the very beginning that cancellation was hardly the appropriate way of dealing with the string of dubious allotments of gas stations, LPG agencies and kerosene oil outlets. It has resulted in exactly what was both feared and predicted — the so-called petrol pump scam becoming embroiled in court. Predictably, scores of people who secured allotments rushed to various courts challenging the Government's cancellation order. Given that the cancellation was effected without giving the allottees the opportunity of a hearing and given also that the sweeping order covered even genuine allottees, it was inevitable that the Centre's decision was stayed by a few High Courts. This left the Government with no option but to approach the Supreme Court with the request that all the writ petitions be transferred to the apex body for a common hearing.

Representatives of the Vajpayee Government had claimed that the act of cancellation was proof of its good faith. They had also suggested it reflected the Government's determination and courage to mend what was a possible wrongdoing. This may have had a ring of truth if the Government was also prepared to do what any honest administration should have done in the circumstances — institute a thorough and impartial inquiry into the whole matter. Among the things such an inquiry should have determined is how a major share of the allotments went to those within or those close to the ruling party. It should also have determined exactly which persons were responsible for permitting political patronage on such a massive scale to vitiate the entire system of selection. Rather than take further steps, the Government's response to the petrol pump scam has stopped with one cynical and unsatisfactory measure: cancellation.

Rather that deal squarely with the central issues thrown up by the petrol pump scam, the Vajpayee Government has pretended as if it has nothing to do with it. The entire burden of the Petroleum Minister, Ram Naik's oft-repeated song is that the allotment process was done by `independent' Dealer Selection Boards, bodies over which the Government exercises no control except in certain limited matters. What this argument totally ignores is that a Minister who approved an allotment process and who appointed chairmen to the Dealer Selection Boards cannot suddenly disassociate himself from the process of selection when it throws up shocking results which reflect bias and political nepotism. One result of such stonewalling has been the continued stalling of both Houses of Parliament which eventually led to their being adjourned ahead of schedule.

At a legal level, the Centre now has the job of marshalling arguments in favour of the validity of its cancellation order. Prima facie, it would seem that any just solution to the immediate problem — whether or not to uphold the order rescinding the allotments — would have to distinguish between those who got the allotments because of nepotism and those who got them on the basis of sheer merit. However, at a pragmatic level, it is not going to be easy to make such a distinction — theoretically, it is possible for a `political' allottee to have succeeded because of merit just as it is possible for a `non-political' one to have secured an allotment through totally unfair or unrighteous means. The complications thrown up by the sweeping order cancelling all allotments are not, to say the very least, going to be easy to resolve. This is another reason why the petrol pump scam should have been dealt with in a manner which reflected a willingness to punish those responsible for it. And not merely in a manner which implies that the scam will be erased once the controversial allotments are rescinded.

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