PTI
NEW DELHI, March 28
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday attacked the sacked Congress government in Uttarakhand saying the Speaker was murdering democracy by first declaring a Budget rejected by majority MLAs as passed and then by disqualifying MLAs even after Assembly was put under suspended animation.
In a Facebook post titled “A State Without a Budget’, he said the Congress “plunged the State into a serious constitutional crisis by continuing a Government which should have quit after the failure of the Appropriation Bill”.
To further complicate the crisis, “the Chief Minister started allurement, horse-trading and disqualification with a view to altering the composition of the House”, he said.
“After the Assembly has been put under suspended animation and the decision has been made public, the Speaker has decided to disqualify some Members.
The constitutional breakdown has been compounded further by this action,” he said.
The Finance Minister said the Congress government in the state was reduced to minority on March 18 when 35 MLAs in the Assembly voted against the Appropriation Bill and 32 in favour. These 35 MLAs comprised of 27 from the BJP and the rest were rebel Congress legislators.
“On 18th March the majority was declared to be a minority and vice versa, and on 27th March the composition of the House was attempted to be changed in violation of the Constitution to convert a minority into a majority.
“This is an unprecedented case of a Speaker declaring a failed Appropriation Bill as passed and then failing to certify falsehood. This leaves the State without any approved financial expenditure with effect from 1st April 2016,” he said.
Stating that there was no better evidence of a breakdown of Constitution than this, he said, “The Congress Government of Uttarakhand was murdering democracy every day from the 18th of March till the 27th of March.
“It is now incumbent upon the central government to ensure that steps are taken under Article 357 to authorise expenditure of the State with effect from 1st April 2016” as the state cannot spend in next fiscal without the legislature approving the Appropriation Bill, he said.
Pay dues or face action, Jaitley tells defaulters
In a stern warning to wilful defaulters like Vijay Mallya, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said they should settle their dues honourably with the banks or else be ready to face “coercive action” by lenders and investigative agencies.
“I don’t want to make any comments on individual cases but I think it’s a responsibility of large groups like his [Vijay Mallya’s] to honourably settle their dues with the banks,” he told PTI in an interview here.
He further said that banks have certain collaterals of group companies of Vijay Mallya and will take legal action to recover dues that are in excess of Rs. 9,000 crore.
“Banks have some securities. Banks plus other agencies have also coercive methods available with them through legal enforcement…these are all being investigated by relevant agencies,” he said.
Mallya, promoter of long-grounded Kingfisher Airlines, left India on March 2, presumably for London, days before the Supreme Court heard a plea of clutch of state-owned banks seeking recovery from his group firms.
Mallya and Kingfisher Airlines owed Rs. 7,800 crore to a consortium of 17 lenders led by State Bank, which had an exposure of over Rs. 1,600 crore to the now defunct airline.
Other banks that have exposure to the airline include Punjab National Bank and IDBI Bank (Rs 800 crore each), Bank of India (Rs 650 crore), Bank of Baroda (Rs 550 crore), Central Bank of India (Rs 410 crore).
UCO Bank has to recover Rs 320 crore, Corporation Bank (Rs 310 crore), State Bank of Mysore, (Rs 150 crore), Indian Overseas Bank (Rs 140 crore), Federal Bank (Rs 90 crore), Punjab & Sind Bank (Rs 60 crore) and Axis Bank (Rs 50 crore).
The Finance Minister said the government has been trying to address the problem of NPAs in sectors such as steel, textile, highways and infrastructure, which are on account of economic slowdown.
“I think the NPA resolution process will now begin. The sectors which have caused distress… I have always said that there are two kinds of NPAs. One is because of economic environment, the losses in certain categories of industry. Now those areas we are trying to address,” he said.
