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The sale of the government's residual stake in Hindustan Zinc may be delayed because the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is yet to receive Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi's response on the disinvestment.
This may affect the Centre's proceeds from disinvestment this fiscal year and its efforts to rein in the fiscal deficit at 4.1 per cent of the gross domestic product.
The sale, along with the divestment of the government's residual equity in Balco, can fetch around Rs 15,000 crore. However, due to lack of clarity on the CBI investigation as well as a case pending in the Supreme Court, the Centre may not be able to proceed this fiscal year.
Sources said the CBI was seeking Rohatgi's opinion on whether a case could be filed on the alleged irregularities in the disinvestment of Hindustan Zinc to a subsidiary of the Vedanta Group during the National Democratic Alliance rule in 2002-03, on the basis of its investigations.
To a telephonic query on whether the CBI had sought the attorney-general's views on the matter, Rohatgi replied,
"No." E-mail queries sent by Business Standard remained unanswered. Former CBI Director Ranjit Sinha met Arun Shourie, disinvestment minister in the previous NDA government, earlier this year to seek documents related to the investigation.
"I met the CBI director to provide him with files related to the disinvestment process which show that all the laid down rules were followed," Shourie had told news agency Press Trust of India in October. He added the valuers were not selected by the department of disinvestment but by the department of mines.
The agency had filed a preliminary enquiry last year against Vedanta Group Chairman Anil Agarwal, unknown executives of Hindustan Zinc, and officials of the ministries of disinvestment and mines, according to sources. As a part of strategic sales, the NDA government in 2002 had decided to sell 26 per cent equity in Hindustan Zinc to Sterlite Industries, a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources.
It was alleged in the CBI's preliminary enquiry that Sterlite Industries bought the stake at an undervalued price, resulting in a loss to the exchequer. Sterlite Industries merged with another Vedanta group firm, Sesa Goa, in August last year to create Sesa Sterlite.
