New Delhi:
Both Houses of Parliament opened to chaos on Friday with the BJP demanding Home Minister P Chidambaram's resignation, and were adjourned minutes later till noon. The ruckus continued when the Houses reconvened, eventually leading to their adjournment for the day.
The opposition party has cited a newspaper report to allege that the minister misused his office to end a police investigation against SP Gupta, a businessman who was allegedly his client.
Parliament was adjourned yesterday too without transacting work following high-volume uproar over this issue. There are just four working days of the Winter Session left now - it ends on December 22. The Houses did not function for the first two weeks of the four-week session with the Opposition stalling proceedings first over the price rise and black money issues and then over the move to allow foreign direct investment in retail.
The opposition has indicated that it will allow Houses to function from Monday onwards so that important legislation can be taken up in the last four days of the session. There is also talk that Friday next could be included in the session to make it five working days next week. The opposition is learnt to have said that it will work from 11 to 8 everyday and take no lunch break. But today, it intends to stall Parliament over the Chidambaram issue.
The Home Minister has already been a focused target of the Opposition in this session. They had declared before the session began that they would not allow Mr Chidambaram to speak in Parliament, demanding his resignation over his alleged role in the 2G scam. The Gupta case has handed them more ammunition.
In 1999, Mr Chidambaram allegedly served as the lawyer for SP Gupta, who was accused of cheating and forgery. He was also accused of misusing Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi's names on his letterhead. Mr Chidambaram's aides say he cannot recall whether the entrepreneur was his client.
In May this year, Mr Gupta petitioned the Home Ministry for cases against him to be dropped. In September, a committee headed by the Principal Secretary in the Delhi Government's Home Department approved this. The Lieutenant Governor gave approval for this on November 18. But now he has asked for investigation to continue, after being advised that there is enough evidence to merit an inquiry.
In May, the Home Ministry sent a letter asking the Delhi Police to withdraw the cases against Mr Gupta. The letter said this had the approval of the Home Minister, and that the Home Ministry had consulted the Law Ministry.
But Union Home Secretary RK Singh says that this language is a misrepresentation of the facts and that Mr Chidambaram simply asked for the Law Ministry's opinion on the cases to be passed on.
"The Ministry of Law was consulted, and a decision was taken that the petition (asking for cases to be withdrawn) and the Ministry of Law's advice may be forwarded to the Delhi government for appropriate scrutiny and action. The Home Minister wrote only that 'convey advice of law ministry'," said Mr Singh.
The BJP refuses to accept this. Attacking the minister over the allegations, party leader Yashwant Sinha said yesterday, "He is not only guilty of improper conduct but also of a criminal offence. An offender can't be the nation's Home Minister."
But speaking in the minister's defence, his party spokesperson Manish Tewari said, "There is no conflict of interest. That is what you need to understand very carefully. Mr Chidambaram was not his advocate on record, was not his counsel in the court. He was an arguing counsel. Senior advocate is an arguing counsel who is invariably engaged by the briefing or the instructing counsel or the advocate on record to represent to the court may be because he has better face value or a better understanding of the law. Therefore invariably, in most cases, a senior advocate does not even have a direct interaction."
Despite Mr Tewari's explanation, the BJP continues to insist that there is a "mountain of evidence" against Mr Chidambaram. "Well I can understand my friend Manish Tewari's problem. He has to defend the indefensible but there is I will say a mountain of evidence to show that Mr Chidambaram proactively acted in this manner. It is amazing that the file started moving immediately after the day he became Home Minister .Their first representation to the Home Ministry is received a day after he takes over as Home Minister," said Chandan Mitra of the BJP.