India News Online » News Analysis » Indian Politics » 

State of UPA : Tainted Lalu rocks Parliament

	May 02, 2005

Parliament functioning was affected last week because of the storm raised by the BJP and other constituents of the National Democratic Alliance on the question of fresh charge-sheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against Railway Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal President, Lalu Prasad Yadav in the multi-crore fodder scam. The Opposition was demanding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should drop Lalu Yadav from the cabinet. They also met the President when Dr. Manmohan Singh refused to accept their plea. Despite the appeal by the Prime Minister, the NDA boycotted parliament for three days to express their resentment at the Government stand.



CBI court frames charges against Lalu and 69 others

On Monday, April 25, a CBI court in Ranchi framed charges under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including 420 for cheating and 120 B for criminal conspiracy against Lalu Prasad Yadav and former Bihar Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra, a former Union Minister, Chanderdeo Prasad Verma and 67 others.

Both Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mishra who were present in the court pleaded innocent and when the charges were read out, their lawyers said they would move the Jharkhand High Court against the CBI court’s framing of charges which set in motion the trial of the case.

The fodder scam surfaced in 1996. The Patna High Court had directed the cases be handed over to the CBI. After Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar in 2000, 39 of the 61 cases were transferred to the new state. Lalu Prasad appealed against this in the Supreme Court which rejected his contention.

Lalu Prasad Yadav is accused in five cases. He resigned as Bihar Chief Minister in 1997 after a court issued a warrant in one of the cases.



Prime Minister’s appeal turned down

The Opposition turned down the Prime Minister’s appeal on Wednesday, April 27, to reconsider their decision to boycott Parliament for three days. Manmohan Singh spoke to the leaders of the Opposition L.K. Advani and Jaswant Singh and urged them to take part in the proceedings as an important component of the Union Budget was under discussion. He said the Government wanted the Opposition to be present when Parliament takes up important financial business. He said that an atmosphere should be created so that all issues could be discussed.

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee also wrote to L.K Advani requesting that the Opposition reconsider its stand.

The Left parties, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party expressed concern over the developments in Parliament. They said the Parliament cannot function effectively because of what they called unwarranted interruptions by the NDA. They appealed to the Opposition to participate in the deliberations instead of boycotting the important parliamentary fora. In a joint statement, leaders of these parties said “since they were rejected by the electorate in 2004, the frustrated BJP and its allies have been trying to find one alibi or the other to stall the proceedings of the Parliament in the most irresponsible manner.”



NDA appeals to the President to intervene

Led by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, NDA leaders met President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on Thursday, April 28, to demand the removal of the Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav from the Government. They also claimed that the UPA Government dissuaded Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf from calling on Vajpayee at his residence.

Demanding Presidential intervention, the NDA leaders said, “for the first time since Independence, criminalisation has been brought into the realm of the Government at the Centre.”

“We hold the Prime Minister guilty of tainting his own high office first by including criminal elements in the Union Government and now, after the framing of charges against Lalu Prasad Yadav by the special CBI court in Ranchi by indefensibly defending his continued inclusion in the Union Cabinet,” the delegation said.



UPA reaction

The UPA reaction to the NDA demand for Lalu Yadav’s ouster was on expected lines. Union Law Minister Hansraj Bhardwaj said that there is no justification for Lalu Yadav’s dismissal just because charges have been framed against him. He said a Minister can be disqualified only when he incurs some disqualification. According to Bhardwaj, disqualification is post-conviction and Lalu Yadav does not come within its purview at present.

The Congress says that the norm that Minister should quit office if they are chargesheeted, cannot be applied to Lalu Prasad Yadav as the BJP also did not follow the norm when it was in office. The party said that L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharati did not quit as Ministers after being chargesheeted in the Babri Masjid Demolition Case. Lalu Yadav also drew support from veteran CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu. In a statement in Kolkata, he said L.K. Advani was also chargesheeted in the Babri Masjid case, but he did not resign as Union Minister. Basu said that Advani even appeared before the Commission inquiring into the demolition, but continued as Home Minister in the BJP-led NDA Government. The DMK, another constituent of the UPA said that the demand for Lalu Yadav’s ouster from the Union Cabinet is part of the plot to divide the UPA. DMK President M. Karunanidhi in a statement in Chennai said filing of a charge-sheet does not provide enough ground to demand a Minister’s resignation.



PM calls for guidelines on tainted

The Prime Minister has said that there is a need for devising new guidelines and new standards on the issue of tainted ministers. Speaking at a book release function in New Delhi, Manmohan Singh said, “A vibrant discussion is now taking place about who should be Minister, who is a tainted minister. In all these matters ultimately our country has to devise new guidelines, new standards and we all have to work to realize that goal.”

The Prime Minister noted that the Election Commission had favoured exclusion of those charge-sheeted from the Ministry, but added that the government had not agreed with the suggestion, thus virtually ruling out Lalu’s ouster.



Supreme Court raps Government hurry in burial of Lalu IT cases

In a related development, the Supreme Court has expressed disapproval of the quiet burial given to cases of huge income tax demands against Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi. At a hearing on Tuesday, April 26, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court sought to know from the Government how a tribunal hurriedly dismissed the cases. The order came on a public interest litigation filed by a BJP MP Sushil Kumar Modi and JDU MP, Rajiv Ranjan Singh. The petitioners had alleged that the RJD chief manipulated the system and interfered with the course of justice in the fodder scam cases, disproportionate asset cases and income tax cases pending against him and Rabri Devi. The court asked the Solicitor General to file the opinion of the Director General Investigation of the Income Tax department.

The apex court asked the Central Board for Direct Taxes (CBDT) to explain what has it done for the assessment years after 1996-97 against Lalu.

The court was informed by the petitioners that Lalu and his wife had challenged the sanction for their prosecution in the disproportionate assets case before the Patna High Court long back but the petition remained undecided as Bench after Bench were refusing to hear it.

Taking note of the allegations, the apex court asked the Patna High Court to constitute a Bench headed by Justice Aftab Ahmed to decide the appeal “as soon as possible and not later than 30 days from today (April 26.)



Lok Sabha Speaker calls for Right to Recall

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has said that Indian laws should contain adequate provisions to deal with legislators who fail to live up to the expectations of the people. Delivering the D.P. Kohli Memorial lecture in New Delhi, he said all political parties should consider giving the people the Right to Recall elected representatives if the situation so demands.

A clear comment on the NDA’s boycott of Parliament proceedings emerged when Chatterjee said he called on “all concerned to try their best to ensure our democratic institutions, particularly, Parliament and assemblies, collectively function as the most important bodies representing the people and individual members discharge their duties in a dignified manner.”

The Speaker said while people and political parties were increasingly speaking of what is called the “criminalisation” of politics.” None of them were doing anything to remove this stigma. He appealed to all political parties “not to involve anyone perceived to have questionable antecedents in the electoral process.