4. THE BALCO Judgment

4

THE ROLE OF THE SUPREME COURT

            On 30 November 2001, the Reliance Industries prepaid $125 million loan taken in 1995 to overseas banks. Earlier, it had prepaid $400 million to the ICICI Ltd 10 years before its maturity.

             Now, two employees of the Indian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) hotel obtained a stay from the High Court, Chennai against the privatization of the ITDC hotel at Madurai.  

       The disposition of the Supreme Court was to murder the Constitution of India to remove the wealth of India. But there was no proof for the people to tell this to the Supreme Court.

          Therefore, the message of the Constitution of India to various problems was pointed to the learned judges of the Supreme Court.

        This letter No.3 was sent to Mr. K.R. Narayanan, His Excellency the President of India; on 3 December 2001.The letter follows.

                                                                                                 

From

V. SABARIMUTHU

Thattankonam

Vellicode

Mulagumoodu P.O. 629167

To

Mr. K.R.Narayanan

His Excellency the President of India

Presidential Palace

 New Delhi

Your Excellency

             In order to defend and protect the Constitution of India, kindly consider the question of:

1.                             Abandoning the policy of privatization.

       Government is precluded from selling more than 49% of the shares of any Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) on any principle by virtue of the word ‘socialistic’-an economic criterion just like poverty alleviation- introduced in the Preamble of the Constitution.

      A decision taken by majority support cannot undo the decision taken by two third majorities.

          The privatization of the BALCO is, therefore, out and out void.

        The PSUs belong to all people all over India. A handful of people from one or two states grabbing the PSUs with bank, public or ill-gotten funds are against the federal structure of our Constitution, as it would lead to lopsided development leaving the common man with no firm soil to stand.

          The sale of minority shares held by the State is also forbidden because the firm would acquire greater private character.

       However, the government is free to sell them after amending the Constitution suitably.

2. Abolishing   the policy of bulk purchasing.

         Bulk purchasing involves big commissions. The Union Government buying on behalf of the states- and the states buying on behalf of local bodies- must cease.

      There must be competent authorities to certify the absence of bulk purchasing in the Central, State and District levels.

      One can envisage the extent of economic activity all over India if the BSNL, which purchases equipments worth more than Re. 1000 crore every year centrally, directs all the telephone exchanges to buy them locally.

       Obviously the economic deprivation would be compensated by increased job opportunities, sale tax, job satisfaction and so on.

      Similarly, for instance, the Post Masters shall buy but not the Superintendent of Post Offices. 

      The Constitution of India does not give room for any big commissions.

3.                         Giving contract works in pieces and not in one go.

         Now big works are given to big contractors who in turn give them to sub contractors. The sub-contractors hand over the works to still smaller sub-contractors. The reason obviously is big commissions.

        Therefore, consistent with the spirit of the Constitution, the contract works must be given in pieces to encourage the local contractors. There must be competent authorities at all levels to certify this also.                        4. Splitting all PSUs like IOC, BPCL, ONGC, SAIL, BSNL, VSNL into smaller units. 

           In a country where more than 80% of the people go to bed without the means to meet even the day – to - day medical expenses, a few individuals should not be allowed to handle Re. several thousand  crore- several times more than what the Chief Ministers handle- without adequate check and balances and commit big losses.

        The act of splitting the PSUs will promote competition and efficiency.

      The policy of keeping the PSUs as giant organizations is against the spirit of the Constitution of India.

5.      Splitting all financial institutions like banks, LIC, UTI and giving them to the states.

          This is to prevent the flight of capital, and to avoid big commissions and big losses.

      The banks and mutual funds must report to the state government any large scale removal of money from any state.. They must obtain prior permission of the state government before raising and transferring funds.

       The insurance agencies other than the LIC must remit up to 50% of the premium amount to the state Government.

        The federal structure of the Constitution does not permit siphoning of money under any pretext or principle.

6.          Granting licenses through District level offices.

              The Constitution demands that all licenses such as telecom, WLL and export- import code numbers must be given to private parties through the district level offices. This is to avoid favouritism and to give maximum opportunity to maximum number of people.

7.         Annulling the recent decision of the RBI to reserve 5% of the credit to the brokers.

           The act of reserving 5% (about 25000/- crore) of the credit to about 100 brokers of one or two states is unconstitutional. There is no equality of opportunity. The Constitution does not permit gambling in any form for any purpose.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

8.            Reserving 60% of the credit to the rural areas.

         About 75 % of our people live in rural areas. It is, therefore, imperative that at least 60% of the credit from banks must go to them to increase the economic activity in the rural areas.

9.           Controlling lending rates.

  The present deposit rates indicate that the lending rate must be less than 10 % for all kinds of loans. The banks shall function very profitably with service charges alone.

10.         Giving a pension of Re. 500/- per month to all non-pensioners above 60 years.

          People contribute their physical labour to the nation for a span of more than 50 years. They deserve a decent pension in their old age as a matter of right. Since Re. several thousand crore could be collected from service charges alone, there will be no difficulty to implement this.

Yours faithfully,

V.SABARIMUTHU

Vellicode,                                                                                                            3-12-2001.                                                                                                                         

          As soon as the above letter was sent, Mr. L.K. Advani, Home Minister, said that the domestic firms must try to become multinational companies (MNCs). He advised that the “swadeshi” concept should not become synonymous with an anti MNC philosophy.

          Mr. L.K. Advani said the above because there had been some opposition from one or two Union Ministers and some Chief Ministers mainly because of the last two letters. As the media did not publish their discordant notes, nothing came to the surface.

    Thus everyone had to accept his views in this matter.

             Due to his plan, notwithstanding 175 letters from this writer -by April 2011 - the industrialists and other manipulators siphoned off more than $1 trillion from India.                                                                                        

                                                                                                               Mr. Arun Shourie, Minister for Disinvestments, presumably keeping this writer in mind, resented that one could stop everything but no one could do anything. The New Indian Express-through its editorial- reported this with great dismay on 4 December 2001.

                                                                                                              The Hindu on 5 December 2001 said that the disinvestments of Indian Airlines (AI) was totally off but added that the Government would conduct a week long road show in London from 10 December 2001 to sell the Air India((AI).

              Tata withdrew the bid given to buy the AI under the pretext the Singapore International Airline (SIA) –his strategic partner-pulled out.

               The public sector Indian Bank silently hived of its Mutual Fund Schemes, Ind-Shelter, Ind-Tax Shield and Ind- Navrathna to Tata Mutual Fund. The media did not publish the views of the political leaders in this matter.

              The Government decided to conduct a week long Road Show in London from December under the pretext of attracting international bidders for the IPCL.

       The plot of the Government was to sell the IPCL to Reliance Industries Ltd. But the people must think that the Government had no alternative. Therefore, the media talked of the road show.

              As soon as receiving the above letter the Chief Justice of India became very active. He could not predict the nature  of the future letters.  He thought any delay in writing a judgment in favour privatization would be a set back to the conspiracy.

          Evidently, the Chief Justice of India and many learned judges of the Supreme Court were co-conspirators to remove the natural resources and other assets of the nation. The contents of the so-called “Radia tape” in 2010 showed that learned judges – many honest judges included - had been taking orders from the industrialists.

   Thus a three judge bench of the Supreme Court –after a very brief hearing - on 10 December 2001, upheld the decision of Government of India to sell 51 percent of its share in the BALCO at Raipur to the highest bidder - Sterlite Industries- for Re.551.5 crore.

      The Court said that the majority in Parliament approved the economic policy and that the Court was for not considering the merit of the economic policy of the Government.

      The Court thus gave a deadly blow to equality and socialism present in the Preamble.

      Mr. Arun Shourie immediately said that the judgement would enable the Union Government to defend the cases filed in various High Courts.

             

                                                                                                   On 11 December 2001, Pradip Baijal, Secretary, Department of Disinvestments, wrote a letter to various ministries seeking their support for the implementation of the programme of disinvestments. He explained that the sum of Re. 1188 crore garnered through privatization fetched Re. 121 crore as interest whereas the Centre was receiving an average dividend of Re. 7.26 crore only per annum from those companies. Obviously, it was a hallow argument to sell the PSUs.

     Therefore, the above letter dated 3–12-2001 was immediately addressed to all-important Chief Ministers and 14 learned judges of the Supreme Court, the Director, CBI and the important leaders of the opposition parties.

                                                                                                  On 12 December 2001, The New Indian Express demanded the Government to pursue the disinvestments process with renewed vigour without giving any excuses.

      The Hindu in its editorial on 13 December 2001, demanded the Government to fine-tune the disinvestments process.

       Mr. Yashwant Sinha said that  “landmark judgement on the BALCO made the people to accept the unmentionable issue of privatization of Public Sector Undertakings”.

        Immediately, Government decided to disinvest 26% stake in Modern Food Industries Limited (MFIL).

    Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) had been given 74% stake in MFIL in 1999. The privatization of the VSNL, which had offered a special interim dividend of 750%, was also speeded up.

                                                                                                  On 17 December 2001, Mr. Arun Shourie- keeping this writer in mind - bemoaned that the system had become so diffused that anybody writing a letter could stop anything at any stage. He requested the civil servants to break that presumption. He exhorted the bureaucracy to pick up courage to overrule such letters on file. Otherwise, he warned; that he himself would be forced to overrule them.

                                                                                                     With regard to the judgment on the BALCO, Mr. Shourie said that the Supreme Court had reversed the so-called progressive judgments of 1970, 80 and 90s. He said that the immediate consequence of the judgment was that the workers forfeited the right to choose their own employer and that the principles of natural justice did not come into play in regard to policy decisions. He said that the approval of the workers was not needed for buying or selling the shares of the companies.

                                                                                                 

Further, he warned that the delay in economic reforms was weakening the security of the country. He deplored that the policies of the Government were being scuttled by deep-seated “vested interests” at various levels of the Government itself. Therefore, he requested the officials to stand up to anyone blocking the process of disinvestments.

                                                                                                 

Furthermore, addressing the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry on 19 December 2001, Shourie said that all political parties coming to power carried out economic reforms while in opposition continued to oppose them.

       Obviously, he wanted to carry out the plan but the leadership –due to fear- was dithering.