Congress Demands Probe Into Sankhya Vahini Deal

The Congress yesterday demanded a probe into the Sankhya Vahini deal alleging the government was hiding facts and that there was a possibility of financial loss to the nation. At the same time, the party welcomed the move to expand the information highway by the government.

"We are not opposed to the concept as such, which was a good thing. We are only questioning the manner in which it was being done", party MP Kapil Sibal said at the official Congress briefing.

Giving the chronology of the project finalisation, Sibal said the name IU Net was reserved in the US on August 28, 1998. On September 5 the same year, a task force in India made a recommendation identifying the joint venture partner. On October 16, MoU was signed between IU Net and Department of Telecom Services of the Government of India in the US in the presence of Indian Ambassador to the US.

 

Sibal challenged the claim that IU Net's parent GU Net was a 100 per cent subsidiary of Carnegie Mellon University on two grounds. He said the university was not a company and did not invest in ventures of this nature. Secondly, the Government of India, he said, had stated that the university had a majority voting right in GU Net. This means there is at least one more shareholder in GU Net that has a voting right. Sibal wanted to know who that was, whether he was an Indian, an NRI, a non-Indian, or a company.

Sibal also charged that though IU Net's president signed the MoU with DTS on October 16, 1998, the company IU Net was incorporated in the US only on January 8, 1999. Sibal, who has been a member of the New York Bar, said that nowhere in the world a law existed where a person could act on behalf of a company before it was incorporated. It needed a resolution of the board members to appoint the company's president, and without the company coming into existence such a resolution was not possible, he said. "The government proclaims it is for full transparancy, but it is not maintaining even normal rules of transparancy", Sibal charged. The second issue of objection for the Congress is the fact that IU Net's contribution in the project is going to be by way of equipment to the tune of Rs 850 crore.