The Hindu : SC order will make divestment more complex: Shourie

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Wednesday, Sep 17, 2003

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SC order will make divestment more complex: Shourie

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

BERLIN SEPT. 16. The Disinvestment Minister, Arun Shourie, today described the Supreme Court order requiring that the disinvestment process for two major oil companies — Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited — be approved by Parliament as a "major setback" and that future moves would be full of "infinite complexities".

All bidders and advisers had already been told by his Ministry that "there would be no work" on disinvestment of the two entities for some time now.

Seeking such parliamentary approval on individual transactions would add infinitely to the complexities of disinvestment, "and this would affect not just the Centre's moves on disinvestment of public sector enterprises but that of the States as well.

Mr. Shourie did not agree with an Indian correspondent that taking the issue to Parliament would amount to "walking into a huge political quagmire" but said the future course would have to be carefully evaluated and the issue taken back to the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment due to meet on October 3.

By then, he expected the Law Ministry to study the court orders and prepare options.

The Attorney-General's opinion was sought at the suggestion of the Opposition vis-à-vis privatisation of other PSUs, for instance, the Mines and Minerals Trading Corporation and the State Trading Corporation.

He did not want an appeal for a review to be filed but drew the attention of the journalists on the sidelines of a Indo-German business meeting on improving the trade and investment that these were not the only PSUs put up for sale after due deliberation.

He asked if the conversion of Maruti during P.V. Narasimha Rao's tenure was correct.

Thereafter, Mr. Shourie said, the Government's equity was brought down, all without parliamentary approval.

At the business conference earlier, which was the start of an India-focussed view of doing business with Germany, organised as Asia Pacific Week here, Mr. Shourie dealt with the processes of reforms which had, along with a changed outlook to doing business, improved levels of economic growth and made "India a new country, a changed country". It was a country that had "done independent thinking" and was not a "basket case" because it did not defer to IMF on all matters.

Earlier, at the business meeting, Mr. Shourie said the oil companies were set up by an Act of Parliament and therefore, the judiciary had asked that it be taken back to the same body. Such "meteors do hit one. One has to make sure it does not land on you".

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