Press Briefing Wednesday, 6th April 2011

Smt. Jayanthi Natarajan addressed the media today.


Smt. Jayanthi Natarajan said we have raised from this platform an important issue relating to major corruption in the Khushabhau Thakre Trust and land allotment in Madhya Pradesh. At that point of time, we had raised some very crucial questions and those questions were the fact that Mr. Advani, Mr. Venkaiah Naidu and Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi – the very top leadership of BJP - are all Trustees of Trust. Mr. Kailash Joshi is the Secretary of the Trust and that the scandal being that even six months before the Trust formally came into existence, over 20 acres of land was allotted to the Trust by a cabinet decision in blatant violation of land-use policy. Three times the land use policy was changed to suit the purposes of the Trust. The total value of the land at that time was over Rs. 60 crores. The District Magistrate of Bhopal had recommended that a premium amount of Rs. 4.06 crore should be charged for the lease but the Madhya Pradesh government allotted the
land at the premium of only Rs. 25 lakhs. That the District Magistrate of Bhopal recommended that an annual rent of Rs. 27 lakhs should be charged from the Trust but the Trust pays an annual rent of Re. 1/- and after the allotment in July 2006, only six months later, that the Trust comes into existence. So the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh at that time and the BJP government until today had colluded with the BJP and its leadership in a criminal conspiracy with intent to defraud the public and the people of Madhya Pradesh out of a large tract of land and to get it allotted to their own party. The land use was changed from public land to semi-public and then for the use of the Trust thereby, at every stage, there was criminal collusion between the government of Madhya Pradesh, the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and the senior leadership including Mr. L.K. Advani of the BJP. Today, as you are aware, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has set aside the allotment of the land passing orders on the petition filed by an NGO and has directed the Khushabhau Thakre Trust to return the land to the people. This is an act of shameful blatant and completely brazen corruption on the part of the BJP. The fact that it involves the senior most leader of the BJP, the fact that Mr. L.K. Advani, Mr. Joshi and Mr. Venkaiah Naidu are complicit and willingly accomplices in this conspiracy to defraud the people of Madhya Pradesh and misuse public land has shocked the conscience of the nation. The order of the Apex Court has vindicated the fight for justice by the people of Madhya Pradesh and has exposed the corruption of the BJP and put it on display as a party which is rotten to the core. We now demand that Mr. L.K. Advani and the entire BJP should apologize to the nation for having defrauded the public of Madhya Pradesh out of public land. We demand that the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh should be called upon to explain the entire sequence of events that led to the implementation of this criminal conspiracy. We also demand that an FIR should be filed against all those who are involved in this scandal and the criminal law of the land, Indian Penal Code, the Prevention of Corruption Act should all the be invoked to punish all those who are involved in this major land scam.

On the question of the reaction of the Congress party over the statement of Shri Anna Hazare that the government has not invited them for discussion and that it is another struggle for attaining freedom and whether the Prime Minister is remote controlled, Smt. Natarajan said I don’t think it would be correct to just talk about last six years. Ever since our independence, I think there has been discussion at least for the last 25-30 years about various forms of Lokpal Bill based on Ombudsman Bills that exist in various countries but in an evolving democracy, there are various important aspects which have been raised. The matter is being discussed in the NAC and various other forums; I think it requires great deal of discussion before a wide consensus can be evolved in this matter. Therefore, it is not a question of a time frame. The Prime Minister has made his intent very clear. The fact is that the various levels of suggestions that have been made, have far reaching constitutional implications – whether CVC should be merged into this, whether they should have police powers, whether they should have judicial powers, all the arms of the constitution have been brought into discussion - calls for a national debate. The Prime Minister is extremely serious about the matter. He has gone much further than anybody else has gone in the past. The draft Lokpal Bill has been prepared. There may be divergent views on this Bill, has now set up a committee to go in to this and it would be in the fitness of things if all those who are agitating for a particular form of the bill come to the table and discuss all aspects of the bill so that it will result in the benefit of all the citizens getting the benefit of Lokpal Bill. The Prime Minister has set up a committee. They can send their views to the committee.

Smt. Natarajan further said there is no question of the Prime Minister being remote controlled as he has directly constituted a committee to go into the various aspects and study the matter. The Prime Minister has time and again, in parliament and outside and at various forums, has expressed his concern; he is completely committed to act in the matter much more than any other Prime Minister.

To another question on the setting up of a GOM in the matter of Lokpal Bill, Smt. Natarajan said the Ministers in the GOM will be in a position to answer this question. They can answer themselves.

On the question of the reaction of the Congress party over the situation in Tamil Nadu with regard to assembly elections and the Election Commission monitoring the developments there and the recovery of huge money, Smt. Natarajan said the ground reality is that the DMK-Congress alliance where the Congress party plays a major role, will definitely win the elections handsomely and form the government. About the money – certainly the wrong use of money power in the election is a matter of concern for every right thinking citizen and whatever amount of money have been recovered by the Election Commission, all efforts should be made to trace the source of the money, to find it out where it came from and to ensure that it is not misused in the election. At the same time, the Election Commission should ensure that ordinary trader and ordinary people, who are going about their daily business, are not troubled in their day to day activity. But we are totally committed to the fact that there should be no misuse of money power during election and whatever steps are taken to control this in a democratic way, are totally welcome and we would also like to ensure that there is complete fair play in the election.

On another question whether there is any difference of opinion between the NAC and the government in the matter of Lokpal Bill, Smt. Natarajan said I am repeating what my party says that this is a matter of national debate. It is an important matter and this involves various constitutional arms which are very important and therefore, since the Prime Minister has set up a committee and since the matter is now being
discussed at the national level, all shades of opinion should come and all stakeholders should come forward to discuss this matter. Smt. Natarajan further said she does not want to refer to NAC vis-à-vis the government or Anna Hazare.

On another question on the briefing held by spokesperson in parliament over the amendments in the Hindu Marriage Act, Smt. Natarajan said she wants to clarify that it was not a Congress conference. That was probably a press conference by the Standing committee on Law on which she is a Member. That was a report which we tabled on 01.03.2011 regarding the Marriage Laws Amendment Bill specifically the Hindu Marriage Act and Special Marriage Act where the Bill sought to introduce irretrievable breakdown of marriage as a ground for divorce without the waiting period of six months. The Standing Committee of Parliament on Law, Justice, Personnel and Public Grievances went into it in great detail. There was a tremendous public response to the hearing and we have recommended to the government and the unanimous report was tabled in both houses of parliament on the 1st of March 2011. Two main provisions – one is that the six months’ cooling off period between the time of filing of divorce petition and actually obtaining the divorce should be retained. What the Act wanted to do was to remove that six months’ waiting period. It would be better in the super structure of society if the couple had a chance to reconcile and that it should be retained. The second and more vital point that we raised was the relation to property. The Committee was aware that existing laws relating to alumni are there after divorce but with regard to property acquired during the marriage, that property should be treated as community of property or matrimonial property and the government should evolve a legal mechanism to ensure that upon divorce, the woman was protected particularly and there should be equitable division of matrimonial property i.e. property acquired during and not before or after the marriage particularly in view of the fact that most women do a lot of unpaid house work. Third, the government should pay special attention to the rights of adopted children in the case of divorce. These are the main issues that reports highlights and the entire committee hopes that the government will accept and amend the Marriage Laws Amendment Act. Entire alumni issues are not implemented properly only because of the questions that are raised.



(Tom Vadakkan)
Secretary, AICC