Allegations of illegitimate interference by Ms Omita Paul
There
are some serious allegations relating to the doings of Ms Omita Paul. Ms Omita
Paul appointment as advisor with the rank of secretary with a tenure that
was concurrent with the tenure of Mr.
Pranab Mukherjee in different ministries meant that she was both de facto and
de jure the number two person in the Ministry. This fact can be ascertained
from the various secretaries that worked with or under her and also by the
noting in the file where her word prevailed. These senior secretaries had to
suffer on account of her appointment as she was not only junior to them but
less knowledgeable or competent.
She
was neither elected by the people nor selected to the IAS cadre by the UPSC and
yet she came to occupy the second most important position in three key
ministries of the cabinet. No known guidelines or law was followed in her
appointment which was arbitrary exercise of discretionary power. In fact the
provisions relating to equality in the Constitution were given a go by.
It
will not be wrong to describe her appointment as illegal.
It
is for this reason that the information relating to provisions of law under which
she was repeatedly appointed and the file with noting on her appointment has
not been revealed under RTI.
The
track record of the functioning of Omita Paul shows that she has misused her
exalted position in the Finance ministry for blatant nepotism, for depriving
extensions of tenure to senior officers only because they were honest and
competent appointing a corrupt person to the sensitive post of chief of the
capital market and lastly influencing the decision making process to companies
involved in securities fraud.
Does
she act on her own behalf or on behalf of Mr Mukherjee? Is she a lobby centre
for corrupt corporation? Or is she a buffer to take the heat off any
scandal/wrong doing? And what is the reason for Mr Mukherjee helpless when
blatant act of her nepotism and corruption are reported in the press?
Whatever
be the reason, the constructive responsibility is that of the Minister himself!
First
the obvious question: What is the reason for the appointment of Ms Paul in the
number two position in the three key Ministries that Mr Mukherjee has been a
Minister
Ms
Paul has been continuously appointed as an advisor with the rank of secretary
in the three key Ministries – Foreign, Defense and Finance- which has been co
terminus with the tenure of Mr Mukherjee. Her appointment as Advisor in three
different ministries is without precedent in Independent India and it is
difficult to believe that she has specialized knowledge in three different
areas to merit such appointment.
All
attempts to get information on the law/guidelines under which she was appointed
and the papers on her appointment under the RTI have been in vain.
It
is an arbitrary appointment for arbitrary goals. Even the secretary of the Ministry
is subordinate to her!
Though
there have been extra constitutional authorities and power centres in the past
an official power centre like that of Ms Paul the country has not known.
It
may be mentioned that Ms Paul was also appointed as Information Commission at
the time of election between UPA I and UPA II and that the then leader of
opposition Shri Advani and the Prime Minister in May 2009 found time to select
her as Information Commissioner for five years. The post of Information
Commissioner was an insurance cover in case the Congress lost the election. She
worked for eight days and disposed a total of 58 cases before re-joining as
Advisor cum secretary in the Ministry of Finance once UPA came back to power.
That
Ms Paul acts as an independent power centre, and works for the benefit of
herself, her family members and the corporate lobby and in the process compromised
national interest is obvious from the incident relating to appointment of SEBI
chief.
She
manipulated the entire system in order to have her candidate, a corrupt person
Mr U K Sinha appointed to the post of Chairman of SEBI so that he would favour
companies like Reliance and Sahara. It would also enable her to have her
brother appointed to the post vacated by Sinha having emoluments of four
crores, even when her brother did not have the basic qualification to be
appointed to the post.
But
first her role in removing honest officials from SEBI to install Mr Sinha:
The
decision to give extension to the existing Chairman and members of SEBI by the
secretary and the Minister ( approved on 19/10/09)was cancelled on her behest (
21 and 22/12/09), the existing members were never considered later for
extension (10/8/10), she changed the composition of the committee to select the
Chairman, had her own experts nominated to the Committee (25/8/10), ensured
that the candidature Mr U K Sinha
is by the so called search route.
The search route was taken to conceal the illegal emoluments of Rs 4 crores drawn
by Mr Sinha in a PSE which would have
disqualified him for the post on grounds of integrity. It would also enable her
to push the candidature of her brother who could enjoy the lavish salary
without others knowing the real reason for pushing his candidature
After
having Mr Sinha selected as Chairman Ms Paul ensured that the even the
Appointment Committee of the Cabinet does not come to know the emoluments of
Sinha while confirming his appointment. .( Refer confidential letter DO no 2/23/2007-RE dated 13/12/2010 of Dr
Thomas Mathew, to Est Officer Annexure
-1 item 4 (ii) Scale of pay : Not available)
It
is obvious that the concealment of Mr Sinha’s emoluments was deliberate and
designed to mislead the selection committee and the ACC to presume that he was
being paid the maximum pay payable to a PSU chief of Rs 1.25 lacs/pm.
Mr
Sinha’s emolument were over Rs four crores per annum (3.62 crores for 10.5
months as per balance sheet of UTI AMC) which is not possible in a public
sector organization like UTI AMC. The Establishment Officer vide his order
dated 4/1/08 had stated that the deputation was covered under Rule 6 (1) and
not 6 (2) (ii) of IAS Cadre Rules!
Mr
Sinha got his emoluments increased after the decision of the Establishment
Officer with retrospective effect to Dec 2006 and earned over 10.5 crores.
The
purpose of appointing a corrupt and manipulative person to the sensitive post
of SEBI chairman was to settle issues of thousands of crores in favour of the
concerned companied which had lobbied with her.
The
allegation of Ms Paul acting on behalf of the corrupt corporate is borne by the
fact that Dr Abraham as a WTM had leveled allegation in a letter dated 1/6/2011
written to the Prime Minister that Mr Sinha tried to influence him on four
cases. One of the case related to securities fraud of Reliance group, and others related to Tayals of Bank of
Rajasthan, Sahara, and MCX.. While trying to influence him Mr Sinha had stated
that these were “engaging the attention of Union Minister for Finance, or Mrs
Omita Paul, Advisor to the Finance Minister,”.
The
denial of extension to the then Chairman and members of SEBI by Mrs Paul, the
fact the extension was stopped when SEBI recommended action against the
Reliance group to the Finance Ministry on a eight year complaint by Mr
Gurumurthy involving over 25,000 crores of benefit to the promoters, the
extraordinary interest taken by Ms Paul
in having a corrupt person like Mr Sinha appointed as SEBI chairman by
suppressing his illegal salary from the selection committee and the Appointment
Committee, and the subsequent action of Mr Sinha all show that Ms Paul was
involved in harming national interest by promoting corporate interest of the
respective companies.
Sahara
was a company taking deposits from small un-bankable people. From 2008 onwards
during the tenure of Mr Mukherjee it violated the deposit norms under section
58 A of Companies which allowed to collect unsecured deposits from debentures
for 10% of its own fund. By that it could have collected only Rs 230 crores but
went on to collect over Rs 20,000 crores. Almost the entire money collected was
siphoned out and virtually there were negligible assets in the company in whose
name deposits were taken so that the group could not be compelled to refund the
amount. It was the largest ponzi scheme involving 2 crore poor people.
Dr
Abraham had passed orders in the company which was contested by Sahara in the
High Court. But by a freak chance the matter came before him for adjudication
because the CJI referred the matter to SEBI. He adjudicated the matter at the
fag end of the tenure (23/6/11) directing the group to refund the entire money
to the investors. His order was upheld by the Tribunal and is likely to be
upheld by the Supreme Court also. The order of Dr Abraham is proof of his
competency and honesty, while the shenanigans of Mr Sinha at UTI AMC is proof
of his cleverness and manipulative skills.
The
second case that interested Ms Paul was the securities fraud of 513 crores of
Reliance group (Mukesh Ambani group). Reliance Petroleum shares were short sold
for Rs 290 and later covered when the shares were sold in the cash segment and
the prices fell. The reliance group made 513 crores in five days. The
securities fraud occurred in Nov 2007
The
penalty is three times and the total amount involved is 2000 crores.
Reliance
tried to settle the matter by paying a fine of only Rs two crores and then
eight crores through consent order. It was not even willing to pay back the
fraud amount of Rs 513 crores. This was not acceptable to the then officers of
SEBI..
Mr
Sinha has changed the circular on the consent order (25/5/2012) in a manner to
favour Reliance group and continue the settlement of the criminal offence
through a consent order. This is in sharp contrast with the case of Rajat Gupta
whose offence was much less but then he did not a Omita Paul or U K Sinha to
bail him out.
The
third case related to the Tayals of Bank of Rajasthan in whose favour the
outgoing member Prashant Saran passed a favourable order so that he could be re
appointed. That the order only showed that the allegation of Dr Abraham were
true. Similar conclusion were made by the media
Kindly
refer links in Financial Express and Mint on Mr Saran’s order
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/what-is-sebi-thinking/929811/
http://www.livemint.com/2012/04/02202250/Sebi8217s-arguments-inTaya.html
The fourth
case related to MCX which wanted to open a parallel stock exchange. The
Ministry ensured that Dr Bimal Jalan Committee report is taken up by SEBI after
Sinha became the chairman so that the portion relating on listing of the stock
exchange company is rejected. This would help in giving market value to the MCX
license. Further the terms of opening the exchange too has been diluted.
Other
related scandals
On the
slot vacated by Sinha at UTI AMC, Ms Paul
wanted her brother to be appointed and though the four financial institution
under her were agreeable the foreign shareholder was not. As a result the post of
the CMD remained vacant for fifteen months because Ms Paul wanted to have her brother
appointed. Great harm to public interest was done because UTI has around 60,000
crores invested in the financial market and large part of the money comes from
government sources.
It
was only when the candidature of the Mr Mukherjee was considered for the post
of President of India seriously, the brother of Ms Paul withdrew from the race
of the post of CMD of UTI AMC The advertisement released subsequently for the
post thereafter shows that neither Ms Paul’s brother nor Mr Sinha had the
qualification because it states that the person should be a seasoned financial
service professional with minimum 20 years experience. They are neither financial service professional nor have a
days experience. In fact the advertisement released, for the first time honours
the commitment given to the government to the JPC II on securities scam that a
professional would be appointed through a advertisement.
Mr
Sinha had increased his emolument through a rubber stamp Board on the grounds
of industry parity conveniently forgetting that he was appointed to an
executive post and industry parity is given to non executive posts like pilots
etc. His deputation was covered under Rule 6(1) of the cadre rules and the
maximum he could draw was Rs 1.25 lacs per month. It was for this reason he
appealed to the High Court against the order of the Information Commission that
UTI AMC is covered under the RTI Act. Both Ms Sinha and Ms Paul wanted the
illegal emoluments to be a secret for their respective reasons.
The
other act of nepotism involved Ms Omita Paul’s husband who was favoured by an
unprecedented amendment in the IT Act. The following exemption granted in the
year 2011 was notified for being applied retrospectively from the year 2007-08
to cover the entire tenure of Mr Paul in the UPSC Section 10 (45) of the Income
Tax Act was introduced in 2011 to state: (45) any allowance or perquisite, as
may be notified by the Central Government in the Official Gazette in this
behalf, paid to the Chairman or a retired Chairman or any other member or
retired member of the Union Public Service Commission. Retrospective amendment
to undo a judgment or wrong has been known but never to pass on a benefit like
the one above. The amendment was sought to be justified on the basis of sixth
pay commission report but there no such recommendation in the report. The fact
is that Ms Paul out of sheer vindictiveness used her influence to initiate
disciplinary proceedings of major penalty against an honest officer like Mr
Abraham who exposed her corruption and refused to compromise. His order against
Sahara is in sharp contrast to the manipulations of Ms Paul and Sinha.
There
is sufficient material to charge her for offences committed by her under PCA
and IPC.
Answers
are needed on whether all these actions of Ms Paul narrated was within the
knowledge of Mr Mukherjee? Some of them were also covered in the press! He gave
official approval whenever the same was required. If so then what did he do
restrain her and protect the public interest? Or was he helpless to act?
Ms
Paul is the responsibility as the latest extension given to her on 15/6/2012
states that her tenure “coterminous with the tenure of Shri Pranab Mukherjee as
Finance Minister”.
Her
next assignment is the post of Secretary to the President of India!
