6 November 2002
TEHELKA PANEL CHAIRMAN KNOWS
HOW TO GRAB BEST OF THE WORLD
From Jal Khambata
NEW
DELHI: Tehelka Inquiry Commission Chairman Justice K Venkataswamy, a
retired Supreme Court judge, has in his pocket the chairmanship of
yet another Commission even before he finishes the present work in
hand and he has already requisitioned a brand new airconditioned car
to go with his new job.
He knows how to grab best of the
world, securing postings and perks that suit a retired judge. He
already has an Ambassador car allotted to him as the chairman of the
Tehelka Commission but he is now insisting on the second car allotted
to him by the Finance Ministry, specifying that it should be a new
Maruti Esteem Delux airconditioned car.
The Tehelka Inquiry
may not come to an end for long the way Justice Venkataswamy is
handling it, even though he assumes on December 10 chairmanship of
the Authority for Advance Rulings (AAR) on Customs and income tax, an
authority created under a Supreme Court ruling in 1996 to give
binding rulings on the question of law and facts instead of the
litigants rushing to the court.
It will be nothing new for
Justice Venkataswamy to handle two jobs simultaneously. In fact, he
has been commuting between Delhi and Chennai all these months to
attend to his present twin assignments.
Simultaneous to the
Tehelka inquiry, he has been also heading the Southern Railway Claims
and Disputes Tribunal, headquartered in Chennai. His term with this
Tribunal is coming to an end on November 15. He used to fly to
Chennai every week for the Tribunal sittings held on Thursdays and as
such he will be in Chennai also on November 7 to preside over the
last but one sitting.
At the last sitting of the Tehelka
Inquiry Commission, Justice Venkataswamy had announced that he would
be re-examining five key witnesses. His court room in the Vigyan
Bhawan was, however, occupied by the secretariat of the international
environment conference and hence he would be able to resume hearing
only in the third week of November.
The Government, however,
does not want the Tehelka Commission to go on for ever and in fact
the orders were issued on October 15 appointing him as chairman of
the 3-member Authority for Advance Rulings, a statutory body, on the
assumption that he would be free from the Tehelka inquiry shortly
since the hearing had concluded. Venkataswamy's decision to
re-examine five key witnesses came as a surprise to the
government.
Justice Venkataswamy was chosen for the new post
on account of the mastery he displayed in quickly grasping relevant
information regarding foreign exchange and revenue matters from the
load of documents that the Government had dumped on the Tehelka
Commission to fix broker-fiancier Shankar Sharma and the Global Trust
which owns the Tehelka website company.
Ms Laxmi Sharma,
commissioner of the Authority, is understood to haves shot out a
letter to Union Revenue Secretary C S Rao, pointing out that Justice
Venkataswamy desires the new airconditioned Maruti Esteem Delux car.
In her letter to Rao, Ms Sharma has pointed out that Justice
Venkataswamy shall be assuming the new charge on December 10 and
hence the car should be procured for him before that date.
He
has to take over from Justice (retd) S C Sen who is retiring on
December 5. Justice Ranganathan, also a retired Supreme Court judge,
was the first chairman of the Authority. The Government is yet to
appoint two other members of the ARC, which was created specifically
to help out the Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) caught in time-consuming
litigations in the matter of the income-tax assessments.
Meanwhile,
even in the Tehelka Commission, Justice Venkataswamy had his say in
appointment of the new officer on special duty (OSD) following death
of Rama Rao. The Government wanted to depute an officer to the
Commission but Justice Venkataswamy refused to accept anybody else
except the man of his choice. Orders were finally issued on November
1, appointing Kadirvelu, a Chennai lawyer as the new OSD. Kadirvelu
is reported to be a relation of Justice Venkataswamy. END