NEW DELHI: A group of civil rights activists, including Supreme Court lawyer, Prashant Bhushan, and former Indian Ambassador to Mexico, Madhu Bhaduri, on Wednesday called upon the Government to expand the scope of the panel set up to inquire into the Volcker report's references relating to the Congress and former External Affairs Minister, Natwar Singh, to include its references regarding Reliance Petroleum also.

Addressing a press conference, the activists said that the Volcker report had clearly mentioned that 64 million barrels of oil were lifted under the Oil-for-Food programme by a Leichenstein-based company called Alcon Petroleum Limited on behalf of Reliance Petroleum and one Mr. Robert Javier of Spain, during the time Iraq was collecting surcharge/kickbacks.

The transaction, they said, has raised several questions as according to the Volcker report, Iraq dispensed oil allocations to and on behalf of individuals and groups, which it considered as being influential in their countries and who espoused pro-Iraq views or organised activities against the sanctions imposed against it.

The activists said there was a need to find out whether any political entities were involved in the deal. The deal itself must be probed and included under the scope of the inquiry panel set up under former Supreme Court Judge, R.S. Pathak.

The press conference was addressed by Arun Kumar Agarwal, who has authored the Cricket Telecast Rights Report for Doordarshan; Shekhar Singh, former Professor of Indian Institute of Public Administration and Convener of the National Campaign for People's Right to Information; Arvind Kejriwal, Convener, Citizens Forum Against Corruption; and Nikhil Dey, Convener, Majdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghatan. Reliance officials issued a press release rebutting the allegations against Reliance Petroleum.

Referring to a complaint filed earlier by Mr. Agarwal with the Enforcement Directorate on the deal, the release said that between April 2000 and May 2002 (when the surcharge was being imposed) the company had bought 30.6 million barrels of Iraqi crude called `Basrah light crude' from various trading companies.

All these companies, it stressed, had got their allocations either directly from the State Oil Marketing Organisation of the Government of Iraq or bought the crude from a party having such direct allocation under proper U.N. authorisation.

It also clarified that all payments were through normal banking channels and no other payments of any kind were involved.

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