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PROF. VIJAY KUMAR MALHOTRA : We are only asking that the papers should be laid on the Table which the whole world knows. यह सारी दुनिया को मालूम है, यह पेपर्स क्यों न रखे जाएं। ..... (व्यवधान) हम पहले ही कह रहे हैं कि वह कवर अप करने की कोशिश कर रहे हैं।..... (व्यवधान)

MR. SPEAKER: Let me listen to the Leader of the Opposition.

… (Interruptions)

SHRI L.K. ADVANI : Mr. Speaker, Sir, I may candidly admit to you that when I was writing this letter, some colleagues suggested that after all lately the CBI has raided so and so who have been named in the Hamdan and Andaleeb Sehgal, etc. etc. Can you not demand that? I said: ‘No’. The CBI has done it and the CBI is an investigating authority. The Directorate of Enforcement has done it on its own. But in this case, the Prime Minister asked the special envoy to go and meet the Volcker Committee and get the necessary papers relating to this, this and this. Now, I think that there is a difference. The fact that the Director of the Enforcement also went along with him, I do not know. I simply know that he said this to the Press in New York, and he spent one week in New Yord interacting with the Volcker Committee there. I see no reason as to why these papers should not be regarded as part of the Volcker Committee Report itself because the Volcker Committee itself could not have given all these papers; thousands of papers relating to scores of countries. Therefore, it is that we had to send Mr. Virendra Dayal separately to him. I feel that if the Government and the Party also are keen, as the Party President has said that we are keen to find out the truth, there should be no hesitation in giving these papers to Parliament.

But I would say that this is the background of the whole Volcker Committee Report and it should be accepted as such. All the three men on the Volcker Committee are eminent persons. Mr. Volcker himself has been an eminent leader in his own field. He has been the Chairman of the Federal Reserve in America.

The other member is a professor in crime and criminology and he has been supposed to be an expert in the field of money laundering. The third person has been a judge in Switzerland. So all of them are eminent persons and they had nothing against India. They had nothing against any particular individual or a party. Therefore to be telling the whole world so much so that on the first day when the Congress Party met to consider this, they even went to the extent of hinting at a legal action. Mr. Chidambaram has subsequently denied that. He said that they did not talk of libel or defamation. Maybe, they did not talk of libel or defamation but there was a mention of legal action and that the legal notice will be served. So much so that Mr. Volcker himself had to take cognizance of it and say that he would welcome such a notice, and that let them send a notice. Then obviously, people like our friend Shri Kapil Sibal must have told them how can they do this. It is not possible. Then they must have realised and therefore, the whole threat was withdrawn. But the initial reactions were of threat saying that they will do that and they will do this. The Foreign Minister meets the Prime Minister and the Congress President and comes out again and again by saying that they had given him clean chit. He said that he has explained the whole thing to them and they have given him a clean chit. These are reactions which did not really enhance the reputation of this country. The immediate reaction should have been that if these names have come here, they will inquire it and they will go into it thoroughly. The kind of a situation that has come now would not have come. The initial reactions were to call the whole report bunkum even malicious, even motivated and now the situation is that we have set up an inquiry.

I am not accusing anyone. But there are several instances within the Paul Volcker report and elsewhere also which indicates it. The museums were looted, precious valuables could be found in the auction houses of London. Those who loved these important articles, valuable articles relating to Iraqi civilisation detected them. These people see that massive corruption was involved in the Oil for Food programme.

Unfortunately, I am very very shocked to know that the Loha Purush of the BJP Party and the Leader of the Opposition in this House also says the same thing as what the American administration says. On these Sanctions, the whole world said, the public opinion compelled and that too it started as a Resolution in 1995 which could be implemented at a later date only. But what had happened? Eighty three per cent of the living standards, availability of the calorific effect improved only after this Oil for Food programme was introduced. Who has admitted about child mortality rate? It is not only by the American Press but it is there throughout the world. I am not questioning whether it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly about the antecedents of Paul Volcker and all these things. But even before the reports came, what is being circulated; what was said by important people about the credibility? A report came in the Wall Street Journal by a former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. It said the Volcker report is just another trick. The CPI(M) is not saying that. The CPI(M) on the very first day demanded that let there be an enquiry and let it be incorporated of the misdeeds and all sorts of allegations that can be heard. It said : "The Volcker report is just another trick of the neo conservatives to blow away anyone who gets in the way of their plan of global empire."

THE MINISTER OF PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS AND MINISTER OF PANCHAYATI RAJ (SHRI MANI SHANKAR AIYAR): Were they paid?

SHRIMATI MANEKA GANDHI : That is an excellent question and that would be found out by the Commission… (Interruptions) If we were to presume that the Volcker Committee… (Interruptions)

SHRI MANI SHANKAR AIYAR: You are asking your questions a little bit too early. First let us establish that there were payments made and then we can see that what it is concerned with.

SHRIMATI MANEKA GANDHI : I do not have to establish that because the Volcker Committee has said it and this discussion is on what the Volcker Committee has said. We are not questioning the Volcker Committee, we are questioning the reasons as to why it happened and according notice what has happened to the people indicted or named - you can put the word `allegedly’ all over the place. That is fine. I am sure the speaker will do that. There are no shades of grey that can be allowed in an issue that clearly compromises the Foreign Policy of India and imputes the taking of fund by the Congress Party and the Foreign Minister. If the Congress party sees that their Foreign Minister is culpable, then they should have removed him outright. If they did not see him culpable, then they should not have removed him at all. This action of allowing him to be a Cabinet Minister, attend Cabinet meetings till today and have his words in decisions that affect national integrity and foreign policy while under a cloud is inexplicable. The only opinion that it generates in public is that, perhaps, he was acting under the behest of his seniors in the Party which is why he cannot be punished, or that he knows the names of other beneficiaries who are so highly connected… (Interruptions) None of this, the Food-for-Oil Committee vouchers, specifically for India, could have been done without the knowledge of the Food for Oil Committee. Who was one of the most senior Indians heading that Committee. I will not take his name. I am sure it will come out in the report of the Commission. What was his previous assignment under the two Congress Prime Ministers? Who had sent him to the United Nations? What was the relationship of the permanent representative of India to the United Nations during that time to the Executive Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation? All these have been named and all of them are there in the Volcker Committee Report… (Interruptions)