One can pity Kapil Sibal. Given the thankless job of covering up the UPA's atrocious record on corruption, he has fallen back on the old political strategy of beggaring-thy-neighbour: if I can't improve my reputation, it's best to make my opponents look worse.
But he has failed miserably. First, he tried to give a clean chit to A Raja by claiming that no money was lost in the 2G spectrum scam.
Now, with Raja in jail and his alleged partner - Sadiq Batcha - committing suicide (did he jump or was he pushed?), Sibal is looking distinctly foolish. His zero loss theory is in tatters.
This has not stopped him from trying one more time. On Monday, he went to town claiming that the Tatas got a free ride at VSNL (now Tata Communications) since they failed to return the land belonging to that disinvested company, as per the terms set in 2002.
By innuendo, if not openly, Sibal is trying to say that the NDA government under Atal Behari Vajpayee allowed the Tatas to benefit from the land without paying a rupee. In a March 15 internal note to the telecom secretary, Sibal says that "the divestment of VSNL does not seem fair and transparent."
He went on and on. "The strategic partner has enjoyed the precious government land without paying a single rupee for it. The way the issue of demerger of 773.13 acres of surplus land of VSNL was handled in 2002, and thereafter, not only the interest of investors...but also (that of)government seems to have been adversely affected."
Sibal is trying to be too clever by half. The facts are as follows. The disinvestment proposal specifically excluded the sale of VSNL's surplus land. This land was to be parcelled off into a separate company and then held beneficially for VSNL's pre-disinvestment shareholders, which would include the government. But neither the government nor the Tatas seemed to have moved on this front with any sense of urgency.
But who can be held responsible for this delay? In the nine years between the 2002 disinvestment of VSNL and now, the NDA was in power for two years and the UPA for seven. The blame must thus be apportioned in the same proportion: 25 per cent NDA, 75 per cent UPA.
In any case, since the Tatas have not exactly appropriated the land for their own use, it's still there for the government to reclaim it.
The payoff: some 773 acres of land valued at a few hundred crores in 2002 is now worth over Rs 10,000 crore. No scam here, Mr Sibal, only an undeserved bonanza for the UPA.
But if you, Mr Sibal, really want to expose a scam, here it is. And, here’s a political bonus, too: it will embarrass the NDA. This is what you should be probing, not the non-existent land scam.
What happened during the disinvestment of VSNL is this. The telecom minister – the late Pramod Mahajan – decided that government will end VSNL's monopoly in international calls two years ahead of schedule in 2002, when VSNL was disinvested.
So far, so good. But the issue was one of compensation for the loss of monopoly. As a government company that was listed abroad, VSNL had told investors that it would have a monopoly till 2004. This was the basis on which VSNL shares were sold in the GDR market and during domestic listing earlier.
When the monopoly was ended earlier, this promise was broken. Which is okay, provided VSNL was compensated for the loss of revenue. This did not happen. The government gave it some minor concessions on domestic long-distance telephony, and said vaguely that issue of final compensation would be taken up separately later. But that didn't happen.
The rumour mills then were abuzz with the suspicion that a favoured business group was to win VSNL. But that didn’t happen.
Arun Shourie as disinvestment minister ensured a transparent bidding process. In this bidding, the Tatas won fair and square.
The crackle on the grapevine then claimed (without proof) that the favoured bidder leaned on Mahajan to ensure that the Tatas received an empty shell. VSNL was sold without adequate compensation for the loss of international monopoly. The losing bidder, Dhirubhai Ambani, might well have had the last laugh as the Tatas were sold a pup.
By robbing VSNL of its monopoly without proper compensation, the government effectively cheated shareholders, both domestic and foreign. A VSNL suit in an Indian court has made precisely this claim, but it is not clear what has come of it.
Sibal should find out who damaged the interests of VSNL's pre-privatisation investors by ending the monopoly without compensation. That's the scam to probe.
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