Commentary/Mani Shankar Aiyar

Must the country pay the price for political opportunism?

• What accounted for the inordinate delay in Indian Bank not acting on the revised prudential norms for the classification of NPAs when most other scheduled banks readily did so? Why was Indian Bank allowed to get away with such recalcitrance?

• What is the proportion of losses accounted for by provisioning for bad debts during Gopalakrishnan's eight-year tenure? Were political personalities benefactors of such provisioning? Who were they?

• Does the finance minister agree with Gopalakrishnan's assertion in his interview to Business Line (17/8/96) that he 'never got involved in bad debts'?

• Did Gopalakrishnan sanction new advances or increase credit limits within three months of his scheduled date of superannuation/retirement, in violation of rules?

• To what extent was Indian Bank exposed to the three dangers against which former finance minister Manmohan Singh had warned: excessive commercial risks; unsafe banking practices; political pressures? Did Gopalakrishnan's political connections assist him in securing licence to do what he wanted regardless of norms and paralyse the monitoring apparatus of the board of directors of the RBI? If so, what was the source of this political clout and how was it exercised?

• Is the CBI being restricted to probing only the international ramifications of the Indian Bank scandal? Is the CBI being excluded from investigating the bank's domestic transactions? If so, why?

• Why, despite ample evidence turned up in its inspection reports, did the RBI not take action against the Indian Bank management? Was the RBI subjected to political pressure from government?

• Did the finance ministry recommend extensions for Gopalakrishnan? If not, what were the grounds for the finance ministry's reluctance to grant extensions? What were the grounds on which extensions to him were eventually granted?

Unfortunately, most of the JPC members then in the Opposition are now in cohorts with the present government, including vociferous voices like Gurudas Dasgupta. That is why they are so subdued on this issue now where they were only too ready to disrupt Parliament for two years running on the same genre of questions earlier. Must the country pay the price for such political opportunism?

Happily, the present finance minister will probably no longer be in office when Parliament convenes in the New Year. The debate could then be continued in the Lok Sabha in the presence of his successor!