Prasad was a member of the Standing Committee on Finance that discussed gas pricing policy, while he was engaged by a RIL group company
Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Minister for Communications and Information Technology in the Narendra Modi government, was part of the Standing Committee on Finance that discussed gas pricing policy among others, while he was on a retainership with company associated with Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). According to the information procured from the Parliament by us, Prasad was present as member during a sitting of the Committee on 19 July 2013, when the issue of economic impact of gas pricing policy was discussed.
Documents provided by the Aam Admi Party (AAP) show that during April 2013 to March 2014, Prasad was retained by and paid Rs84 lakh as fees by Mumbai-based Fine Tech Corp Pvt Ltd. In addition, he seems to have raised nine bills worth Rs84 lakh on a single day in March 2014, as per the documents released by AAP. The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP has alleged that Prasad, while being a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) was paid this money as retainer fee from a company of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). Prasad, however, has refuted the allegations.
In a release, AAP said, "Union telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is in receipt of retainership fees from a company of Reliance group (Fine Tech Corp Pvt Ltd). We are enclosing the invoices raised by Ravi Shankar Prasad on the company of Reliance group from April 2013 to March 2014, total amount billed Rs84 lakh. Payment is in the form of retainership fee. It appears to be a token of gratification being offered."
"Before becoming a union minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad was a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) from March 2011 onwards, which examined matters relating to allocation and pricing of telecom licences and spectrum. Reliance is a major telecom player and many questions have been raised on Reliance’s improprieties in the 4G matter," the release says.
The JPC headed by PC Chako submitted its report on 25 October 2013. However, Prasad along with Jaswant Singh, Gopinath Munde, Harin Pathak, Dharmendra Pradhan and Yashwant Sinha submitted a note of dissent. It said, "It is regretted that in spite of voluminous evidence on record before the Committee, the final report chose not to fix responsibility of the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister’s Office, the Finance Minister and many others. Our note of dissent is designed to ensure that the political accountability of this massive scam is clearly determined and fixed against all the guilty so that it serves as a lesson for the future."
According to the documents provided by AAP, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader was retained by Mumbai-based Fine Tech Corp Pvt Ltd, during April 2013 to March 2014 and paid Rs7 lakh a month as fees. Prasad raised nine bills for the entire period as individual advocate. In all the bills, location of the service provided is mentioned as WO-31090172 dated 27.08.2013. In addition, all the bills show service description as "Advising on various issues from legal point of view, recommendation regarding decision or course of conduct and vetting of various contracts on legal aspects.”
Here is the copy of bills provided by AAP...
The Kejriwal-led party also alleged that Manish Tewari, the erstwhile minister in Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government also had a retainership agreement with RIL, this was while serving as a Minister. According to documents furnished by AAP, the Congress leader was paid Rs5 lakh between July 2010 and June 2012. Following a letter from Tewari, his retainership was extended by two more years for a fee of Rs6 lakh per month till June 2014. Tewari was also a member of the JPC, which probed the 2G telecom scam, the AAP said.
Here is the copy of letters sent by RIL to Tewari...
What is Fine Tech Corp?
According to information from Zauba.com, Fine Tech Corp was set up in November 2000. The company has three directors, Jaishanker Prasad Kanhaiya Lal Bansal, Rajagopal Subramanian and Shanker Natarajan. Bansal, who is shown as whole-time director of Fine Tech Corp, is also director of Reliance Jamnagar Infrastructure Ltd.
Rajagopal Subramanian is also associated with various RIL group companies, like Reliance Chemicals Ltd, Reliance Industries Investment and Holding Ltd, Reliance Energy and Project Development Ltd, Reliance Global Commercial Ltd and Reliance Aromatics and Petrochemicals Ltd. Shankar Natarajan is also director or additional director on several RIL group companies, including Reliance Oil and Petroleum Pvt Ltd, Jamnagar Kandla Pipeline Co Pvt Ltd and Reliance First Pvt Ltd.
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If there was a quid pro quo related to the gas pricing proceedings, this Govt where he is a minister now (and not just a standing committee member) would not have reduced the gas price of $8.4 approved by Congress govt to $5.6. And this 5.6 is not even available to Reliance. While everyone else will get 5.6, Reliance will still be eligible to get only 4.2 (which is technically against the terms of the NELP contract). While Reliance is famous for having politicians of all hues under the belt and maybe rightly so, I would wonder why they would pay so much money to somebody just to continue getting 4.2 dollars which they have been getting for last 5 years anyway?? As a country, our press and politicians need to stop the habit of putting any 2+2 together to find a correlation everywhere. There has to be a logic to the allegation. This habit has damaged the reputation of our country beyond repair and no one wants to come to do business in India because of this. Even Indian businessmen don't want to, because now anything and everything can be challenged by anybody and everybody. There is no sanctity for anything except noise all the time.. Noise is the only thing that gets attention... Kejriwal may be a great guy, but he needs to realize that other than going on strikes, as a minister (if he becomes again), he has to take some decisions to do some positive work other than just getting after all possible companies and shutting them all down.... Criticize when you have an alternative solution, till then just shut up! Does Kejriwal know the idea of how to increase India's oil and gas production to reduce imports so that the Indian rupee doesn't keep collapsing every other year? Has he got any clue of such matters... It is easy to say I only care about aam aadmi and roti kapda makan.. but if you become CM or PM, you have to deal with terrorists and safety, you have to deal with economic issues, you have to deal with the same bureaucracy to tackle corruption.. things can't change overnight... the frame of mind has to turn positive from just criticism and more criticism.
Your argument is that since there is no established proposition that these gents caused loss to the public; even when they were in RIL's payroll, while arguing public's case against it; we should not make much.
Let me ask a similar question to you. Let us say you are wanting to dispose your property and hire a broker to do the job. The broker comes and tells you that he has found the best deal for you and arranges you to meet the counter-party. In the meanwhile you find out that the broker is on the payroll of the counter-party.
Would you then trust this broker to have done the best job? No, right? But then would you accept if someone says that you are wrong because nothing is established? No again!
That's exactly the point here.
Thanks,
But my question is that if they are on Reliance's payroll, why didn't they use the opportunity to reset the gas price to benefit their masters? There are too many issues in India to bother and a good research would bring out far more material issues than some assumed problems on the basis of an invoice. Problem is with the assumptions without validation, not with the allegation itself. Today everything is up for grabs in this country. Anything can be questioned only on the basis of guess work. No need to prove anything. That culture is harming the nation.
As far as the example is concerned, if I negotiate a price of 50 lac with a buyer myself and then if someone on the buyer's payroll gets me a deal of 55 lac, I won't have a problem with who he works for! That is exactly Reliance's case. They were getting 4.2 dollars. Congress gave them 8.4 but couldn't implement. Now Kejriwal is saying Prasad is on payroll. But BJP cut the gas price to 5.6 and for Reliance, they approved only 4.2! So Reliance is paying it's employee (Prasad) to work against them. That is what Kejriwal is alleging!
"Advising on various issues from legal point of view, recommendation regarding decision or course of conduct and vetting of various contracts on legal aspects.”
We all can understand what counselling he was giving RIL !!
Conflict of interest is criminally liable in Developed world !!!
Here these 2 bafoons -
Tiwari and Ravi prasad are on payroll
of RIL !!!