Wednesday, Apr 23, 2003
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By Oommen A. Ninan
The Commission has nothing to show to justify the huge expenditure and time, which have been consumed. This is in stark contrast to the U.S. judicial enquiry into the modus operandi of Enron, which has resulted in the conviction of many high profile executives and investment bankers. However, in India, in early April, Enron supporters pulled their weight and succeeded in getting the Central Government to file a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the Commission of Enquiry headed by a retired Justice S. P. Kurdukar. On April 9, the Attorney General effected a judicial coup by snatching an ex-parte ad-interim stay order that directs the Commission to exclude the decisions of the of the Central Government and the Central Electricity Authority from the Commission's scope of enquiry and restrains the Commission to limit itself to the role of the State Government, the Maharashtra State Electricity Board and their constituents such as Crisil, Bank of America and Freshfields. The enquiry was ordered based on the conclusions derived by the Godbole Committee, which stated that the assertions relating to the benefits from the project, namely, the effectiveness of negotiations, its design and size, the need for power and the competitiveness of tariff, for both Phase I and Phase II of the project have proven to be false and were based at the time of assertions on extremely questionable assumptions and the arguments advanced to support those decisions appear to be unconvincing and prima facie against public interest. The committee further observed that any investigation in this matter would require an in-depth probe, recording of evidence under oath and calling for relevant records pertaining to the project both in the State Government as also the Central Government and their agencies. The Attorney General, Soli Sorabjee, succeeded in getting the stay order without giving notice either to the State Government or the Commission of Enquiry, even though they have been named as respondents and therefore necessary parties according to Pradyumna Kaul, a leading public policy consultant. At the Commission's hearing on April 10, even the preliminary work was thrown into a spin and it was not clear how the Enquiry proceedings would get divided into two separate compartments of Centre and State. During the hearing, Justice Kurdukar observed that he would be consulting the Chief Minister in this matter. The former Enron India chief, Rebecca Mark, who was a big star in the Indian operations of Enron, is also being investigated by the Justice Department's Enron Taskforce, which are enquiring into the overseas operations and dealings of the fallen energy giant to see if it had engaged in bribing foreign officials to secure contracts as reported by Wall Street Journal in March. Besides, the U.S. Congress is also investigating wrong doings in Enron's $3 billion Dabhol project.
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