Kapil Sibal's egregious outburst

We had occasion to comment on Sibal's rantings in the post dated 25th Sept.,2009. His diatribe against the CAG for the latter's quantification of loss to the exchequer on account of the 2G scam is totally unbecoming of a decent minister. This outburst is a crude attempt to derail the CBI investigation and a brazen challenge to the authority of the Supreme Court.

If CAG's arithmetic is outrageous, the members of the Parliamentary Affairs Committee could have sought his clarification. We do not know whether this was done when the CAG appeared before the PAC. Unfortunately, PAC's discussions are not released to the public. So much for the transparency of our political system !

It is obvious that the Congress party is under pressure from the DMK to ease the pressure on Raja. Kapil Sibal could not have obliged more. Of course, he could have gone one step further. Not only there is no loss to the government on account of the telecom scam, the government actually gained the goodwill of those companies which are the unlawful beneficiaries of Raja's munificence. If Kapil Sibal monetises the goodwill thus generated, he may well say that the government in fact earned a super profit of say Rs.176000 crore ! Is the honorable minister reserving this gem for a future occasion?

In a democracy as we had understood so far, ministers should have their say in private in the cabinet meetings and after decisions are taken, they should have their way in public. What we are witnessing now is the ministers have their say in public and their way in private. This is a total inversion of principles of political governance.

Is the prime minister in agreement with Sibal's latest innovative theory? We will never know since the Minister for Silence and Inaction continues his sphinx-like behaviour.