DDCA: Jaitley should've followed Congress on how to deal with a scam
Right after the 2010 CWG, in January 2011, I was instilled with a special responsibility to preside over the prestigious sports ministry - an office which immediately demanded the highest level of transparency in sports affairs, as well as accountability in the top management of the plagued sports federations and bodies.
This was the time when various allegations were haunting the 2010 Commonwealth Games and a powerful MP from my own party, Suresh Kalmadi, was at the centre of it. But with the single aim to ensure an unhindered probe in this matter, first I removed Suresh Kalmadi from chairmanship of organising committee of the Commonwealth Games within three days of my taking over.
In the first month of my office, I recommended a CBI probe against Kalmadi. My action was staunchly backed by the party high command and in pursuance thereof Kalmadi was even sent to jail.
During my tenure as the sports minister, I wanted to legislate to bring sports bodies under the ambit of RTI, a proposal by which I irked many important persons, who had captured and were running their writ at-large on sports bodies, for decades. Here, lawlessness was to the extent that merit of sportsmen, financial and management transparency were hardly given any weight by the honchos ruling these sports bodies. The captains of these unorganised dens of corruption were people like Arun Jaitley and others who continuously opposed transparency in sports, for obvious reasons and vested interests. Jaitley held the prestigious office of president of the DDCA from 1999-2013.
In order to eliminate this tyranny in sports bodies, which receive "indirect funding" and other assistance from the government, like customs/tax concessions, discounted land for building stadiums, as sports minister, I proposed to the CIC (Central Information Commissioner) that the BCCI must be brought under the ambit of RTI. Reiterating our stance, we also filed an affidavit before the CIC to this effect on December 20, 2011.
I must notify that during my tenure, the large scale corruption in the DDCA was brought to my knowledge by a delegation of the DDCA members in September 2012 and accordingly, I took up the issue with the minister of corporate affairs in the presence of the whistleblowers. As a result, the registrar of companies (ROC) ministry of corporate affairs, initiated a probe into the irregularities in the DDCA on September 28, 2012. The subsequent report of the ROC and serious fraud investigation office (SFIO) revealed that there were grave financial frauds in the DDCA during the presidentship of Jaitley. Inter-alia, one of the major irregularities pointed out in the SFIO report was the unaccounted escalation of costs in construction of the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium to the tune of around Rs 90 crore. More than Rs 50 crore payments were made without floating any tender and the DDCA was unable to furnish any clarification for the same to the investigating agency!
Numerous corporate boxes were constructed for the elite and were sub-leased to friends, without following a transparent tender process, at meagre amounts, allegedly with the consent of none other but the president, DDCA himself! It must also be noted that this entire scam was taking place on prime land allotted by the government to the DDCA, almost for free!! While replying to an unstarred question dated August 7, 2015, the MOS finance of the present government, Jayant Sinha has agreed that on the orders of the ministry of corporate affairs on September 28, 2012, ROC had inspected the DDCA and found irregularities against four DDCA officers namely, Sunil Dev, Narender Batra, SP Bansal and CK Khanna.
Separately, it is alleged that substantial payments were made by the DDCA to nine companies which, on investigation, turned out to benami and having the same registered office, same e-mail ids as well as common directors. These companies were created for issuing duplicate bills and huge payment were made to them by the DDCA.
Confirming the same, the company law board, in its order dated May 9, 2015 has observed that, "The Registrar of Companies, NCT of Delhi & Haryana in his report dated 15.07.2014 submitted that the association has not made disclosures with respect to the names and transactions with related parties in the Notes to Accounts to the Balance Sheet for the financial years 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12. Hence, there is violation of the provisions of Sections 211(3A0 & (3C) of the Act…" Here it is important to point out, that these balance sheets would have been signed by Arun Jaitely himself as the president of the DDCA.
Now, coming to the defence of Jaitley, the Union finance minister on November 17, 2015, issued a statement that the SFIO gave him a "clean chit" under the UPA. It is important to clear this misnomer. The mandate of SFIO, as an investigation wing of the ministry of corporate affairs, is only to investigate serious "corporate frauds". The involvement of individuals in such frauds is then investigated by agencies like the CBI and ED. In this case the CBI has already commenced its probe on October 28, 2015. Further, though with scarce knowledge of complex legal technicalities, I would like to remind Jaitleyji of the settled legal principle -"no man shall be a judge in his own cause." Therefore, for the sake of probity in public life, it is imperative that the finance minister who is the minister in-charge of the investigating agencies (IT, ED, SFIO), must step down for a transparent and fair probe in the matter. Though Jaitley has repeatedly referred to these allegations as technical irregularities, I would like to draw his attention to the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court dated January 31, 2011 in the matter of TC Mathew vs K Balajiiyengar & Ors, wherein the apex court has upheld that the office bearers of cricket associations are in fact "public servants", which fall within the sweep of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Hence, Jaitley is well-advised to be very careful while casually dismissing the charges of serious financial irregularities in the DDCA.
For all the justification the BJP is giving at present, I must remind the party in power, which secured votes in the name of eradicating corruption, that even against Kalmadi, initially no money trail was found, however, the Congress party sacked him to ensure a transparent probe in the alleged irregularities. Similarly, the former chief minister of Maharashtra, Ashok Chavan and former railway minister Pawan Bansal, stepped down from their offices to ensure an unbiased investigations in the allegations against them.
We hope that if not from its election manifesto, the BJP will learn from its predecessor!