Date:21/12/2002 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2002/12/21/stories/2002122105760100.htm

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Cong. resents `clean chit' to Sinha

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI DEC. 20 . A day after the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the stock scam presented its report, the Congress today protested the remarks of the JPC chairman, Shri Prakash Mani Tripathi, giving a `clean chit' to the then Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha. Raising the issue in both the Houses of Parliament, the Congress objected to Mr. Tripathi's comment and asserted that the JPC had held the Ministry of Finance responsible and by implication the Minister.

In the Rajya Sabha, Kapil Sibal, who was a member of the JPC, said that the unanimous report was replete with instances of acts of omission and commission by the Ministry of Finance. "There cannot be a Ministry without a Minister. There are no ghosts over the Ministry, the Minister is a real person," he said.

Mr. Sibal said Mr. Tripathi's remarks were in "utter disregard" of the principle the committee had itself accepted. The Chairman, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, disallowed attempts by the BJP MPs to object to Mr. Sibal's observations saying the Congress MP was granted permission to speak on the issue.

In the Lok Sabha, the JPC report came up as soon as the House met for the day with the Congress seeking suspension of question hour.The Speaker, Manohar Joshi, rejected the notice amid noisy scenes but allowed it to be raised during zero hour. The Opposition demanded Mr. Sinha's resignation for "misleading" the Rajya Sabha while the BJP questioned why the Congress members on the Committee had not put a dissenting note in the report.

Demanding that Mr. Sinha own moral responsibility for the stock market and UTI scam, Mani Shankar Aiyar (Cong.), who was on the JPC, said: "There can be no Ministry without a Minister". Also, the JPC had not given a ``clean chit'' to Mr. Sinha, he said taking objection to Mr. Tripathi doing so without authorisation from other Committee members. V. K. Malhotra (BJP) countered this saying the Congress members on the JPC were now demanding Mr. Sinha's resignation only because they had been pulled up by their high command for not putting in a dissenting note.

No `clean chit': Tripathi

Accusing the Opposition of "politicising" the JPC's report, Mr. Tripathi, told the House that the words "clean chit" for Yashwant Sinha had not been used by him. He said there was "no mention of any clean chit" by him in his press conference and in his press release yesterday. Waving a copy of the press release circulated at his press conference, Mr. Tripathi said: "...and this shows no kind of any clean chit was given... you can go through it."

"The JPC report was politicised after it was tabled in Parliament yesterday," he said, adding "the Opposition is responsible for turning the report into trash by demanding Sinha's resignation even before I held a press conference.''

The Opposition had already demanded that Mr. Sinha should quit and there was no other question at the press conference about the 450-page report other than that on Mr. Sinha. "I only told the press that they should go through the report to draw their own conclusions,'' he said.