UTI imbroglio dominates proceedings in Parliament

Our Political Bureau

New Delhi, Aug 21: The UTI muddle dominated the proceedings of the Parliament on Tuesday. While in the Rajya Sabha (RS), Congress member Kapil Sibal moved a privilege motion against finance minister Yashwant Sinha for misleading the house, the minister announced in the Lok Sabha (LS) that a probe had been ordered into all UTI transactions since the last 10 years to find out if any nexus existed with a big Mumbai-based industrial group.

Mr Sibal moved the notice soon after the question hour and RS chairman Krishan Kant agreed to consider it. He said the finance minister had misled the house while replying to a short duration discussion on UTI by saying that former UTI chairman PS Subramanyam had kept the finance ministry in the dark about the freeze of US-64 scheme on July 2.

Mr Subramanyam, on the other hand, in his bail application in
the court had, however, said that he had taken the decision on
the advice of the minister, Mr Sibal said.

Mr Subramanyam, he said, had stated in the bail application that
he had written to the minister on May 18 and June 30 to apprise
the government of the difficult situation and that he had met
him on July 2 just before the UTI board meeting which took
the decision.

Mr Subramanyam, Mr Sibal added, had also claimed that during that meeting with the minister, Mr Sinha had advised him to either allow redemption of US 64 units at base price or suspend their sale and repurchase.