Aircel-Maxis case: Chidambaram, son get protection from arrest till Aug 7

A Delhi court on Tuesday extended the protection from arrest granted to former Union minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti in the Aircel-Maxis money laundering case till August 7.

Mr. Chidambaram had on May 30 moved the court seeking protection from arrest in the case, saying all evidence in the matter appears to be documentary in nature which is already in the possession of the incumbent government and nothing was to be recovered from him.

The court had earlier granted interim protection from arrest till Tuesday to Mr. Karti in two cases filed by the CBI and ED in 2011 and 2012, respectively in the Aircel-Maxis matter arising out of 2G spectrum cases.

The matter pertains to grant of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to firm M/S Global Communication Holding Services Ltd for investment in Aircel.

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THE TIMES TO TAKE
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Risky recourse: on LIC's proposed stake in IDBI Bank

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India has approved a proposal to allow the Life Insurance Corporation of India to increase its stake in the ailing state-owned IDBI Bank to 51%. The plan envisages the insurer injecting much- needed capital into the financially stressed lender, which was placed under the Reserve Bank of India’s prompt corrective action framework in May 2017 as a consequence of its non-performing assets rising beyond a threshold. While there are no details on how exactly this capital infusion will take place — reports suggesting that the LIC may acquire the additional 40% stake it would need to reach 51% shareholding from the Government of India — market speculation and media reports have estimated figures north of ₹10,000 crore. While for the LIC the sum is a small fraction of the ₹1.24 lakh crore it received in just first-year premiums in the year ended March 31, 2017, for IDBI Bank the funds would almost equal the ₹12,865 crore in capital infusion it got from the government in the last fiscal. Whether this will be adequate to even staunch the flow of red ink at the troubled bank, leave alone help it turn around, is another matter. The bank posted a net loss of ₹8,238 crore in the 12 months ended March 31, 2018, and is facing the prospect of more losses with gross non-performing assets rising to 28%.

The proposal raises several troubling questions. The government clearly sees it as a relatively painless way to recapitalise the bleeding bank without adversely impacting its fiscal position, but the risks in increasingly banking on state-controlled cash-rich corporations to help bail out other state-owned companies or lenders are too significant to be glossed over. Then, there are the regulators. The IRDA, whose mission is to “protect the interest of and secure fair treatment to policyholders”, is reported to have exempted the LIC from the well-reasoned 15% cap on the extent of equity holding an insurer can have in a single company. This puts at risk the interests of the premium-paying customers of the LIC. The Securities and Exchange Board of India has in the past waived the mandatory open offer requirement under its takeover regulations when it involved a state-run acquirer and another state enterprise as the target. As the capital markets watchdog, SEBI has an obligation in all such cases to weigh the interests of the small investor. And the RBI, as the banking regulator, should not ignore the contagion risks that the level of “interconnectedness” the proposed transaction would expose the entire financial system to.

A good beginning: on the Cauvery Water Management Authority

That the first meeting of the Cauvery Water Management Authority took place in a cordial atmosphere augurs well for a sustained phase of constructive cooperation among the States concerned. The CWMA has been formed by the Centre to implement the water-sharing award of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal as modified by the Supreme Court earlier this year. At its meeting on Monday, it asked Karnataka to release 31.24 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of water in July. The quantum is based on the monthly schedule drawn up by the Tribunal, and excludes the surplus realised on the Tamil Nadu side in June. For the Authority to successfully perform its role, it needs the cooperation of the States in gathering data on rainfall, inflows and outflows, cropping patterns and periodic withdrawals from reservoirs. The CWMA is expected to meet once every 10 days during the monsoon months. The south-west monsoon has been active for nearly a month, and is forecast to be normal this year. Therefore, the CWMA may not face any major problem in overseeing the release of water to Tamil Nadu. As long as the inflows into Karnataka’s major reservoirs are substantial, it has had no problem releasing its surplus water into the lower riparian areas of the basin. It is only in a distress year that the CWMA will face a significant challenge, as determining the extent of distress, and dividing the shortfall among the States on a pro rata basis can be tricky exercises.

Karnataka is planning to challenge in the Supreme Court the Centre’s notification constituting the Authority. It will be unfortunate if this dispute gets into another round of litigation. The provisions of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956, make it clear that it is the Centre’s duty to notify a scheme to implement the award of a Tribunal. Parliament has the power to modify the scheme, or leave it as it stands, but Karnataka’s claim that the scheme requires parliamentary approval before it is implemented is questionable. Further, the Supreme Court approved the draft scheme only after finding it to be “in consonance with the dictum and directions in the Award as modified by this Court and also in conformity with Section 6A of the 1956 Act”. Now that the CWMA has become functional, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry should approach the issue of sharing the waters of the inter-State river in a spirit of cooperation and help the Authority in implementing the verdict. The parties concerned should leave behind the era of litigation. There is now a non-political mechanism available to make sound professional decisions on water availability and sharing of distress, if any, after discussing the issues threadbare. After having been locked in a contentious legal dispute for so long, all parties concerned must embark on a new era of mutually beneficial water-sharing.

The SC clarifies an elected government cannot be undermined by an unelected administrator

n ruling that the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi has no independent decision-making power, and has to act mainly on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers, the Supreme Court has restored the primary role played by the “representative government” in the National Capital Territory. Though seen as a Union Territory, Delhi was created as a separate category, with an elected Assembly with powers to enact laws in all matters falling under the State and Concurrent lists, with the exception of public order, police and land. This gave it a status higher than other UTs. The demand for full statehood has been around for many years now, but after the Aam Aadmi Party came to power the constitutional tussle between the two tiers of government has become an acrimonious battle between AAP and the BJP at the Centre. Until now, the situation was tilted in favour of the Centre because of the Lt. Governor’s claim that he had the authority to refer any matter to the President. The proviso that allowed him to make such a reference was used to block major decisions of the AAP regime. The Delhi High Court agreed with this two years ago, giving the impression that administrative decisions needed the Lt. Governor’s concurrence.

In a judgment that essentially reaffirms the constitutional position, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Lt. Governor has to ordinarily act on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers. At the same time, it has retained the Lt. Governor’s powers to refer matters to the President for a decision. However — and this is the nub of the judgment — it has significantly circumscribed this power. The power to refer “any matter” to the President no longer means “every matter”. Further, there is no requirement of the Lt. Governor’s concurrence for any proposal. The ‘reference’ clause may give rise to conflict even now. However, the court has significantly limited its potential for mischief. It has not given an exhaustive list of matters that can be referred, but Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, in a separate but concurring opinion, has indicated that it could “encompass substantial issues of finance and policy which impact upon the status of the national capital or implicate vital interests of the Union.” Every trivial difference of opinion will not fall under the proviso. Overall, the verdict is an appeal to a sense of constitutional morality and constitutional trust among high functionaries. It has ruled out Mr. Kejriwal’s demand of full statehood, and the critical powers — over police, land and public order — still remain vested with the Centre. However, the court having stressed that the elected government is the main authority in Delhi’s administration, the controversies over the arbitrary withholding of Cabinet decisions may end, or at least diminish. The basic message is that an elected government cannot be undermined by an unelected administrator. The larger one is that the Union and its units should embrace a collaborative federal architecture for co-existence and inter-dependence.

Flood of despair: Mumbai's flooding woes according to my opinion..

Mumbai’s capacity to deal with nature’s challenges is falling with every passing year.

umbai is an efficient city in some ways, but this reputation depends on fair weather. It turns into a soggy mess with the arrival of a monsoon. This year the season has begun with the spectacular collapse of a pedestrian bridge on a crucial railway line in Andheri, causing injuries and overall urban paralysis. Not even a year has passed since the ghastly stampede on a foot overbridge at Elphinstone Road station, that took over 20 lives. The recurrent disasters involving infrastructure are proof of the indifference among policymakers to the city’s needs, even as they speak of a ‘global standard’ of living. It is fair to ask whether Mumbai is prepared, after the passage of a dozen years, to meet a disaster such as the July 2005 flooding caused by 99.4 cm of rain in a 24-hour period. The city continues to attract a large number of people looking for opportunity — the population rose from 11.9 million in 2001 to 18.4 million a decade later. But urban managers, led by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, have not invested enough in new infrastructure and have done a shoddy job of maintaining the old. If Maharashtra has to achieve higher rates of economic growth and touch an ambitious 10%, as Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis desires, Mumbai’s infrastructure planning should be in the hands of an empowered custodian who can secure the cooperation of all urban agencies.

A return to nature is needed to relieve Mumbai of its flooding woes. According to one estimate, the city’s Mithi river, blocked by debris and garbage, has lost about 60% of its catchment to development. The setting up of a Supreme Court monitoring committee has not helped much. It will take resolute measures to stop the release of sewage and industrial chemicals into the Mithi, and retrieve lost mangroves. A cleaner river connected to functional drainage can aid in the speedy removal of flood waters, and improve the environment. Yet, there are other basic challenges which are particularly worrisome to less affluent residents. In a 2015 study, the World Bank found that half of the poor did not consider moving out of flood-prone areas, because of the uncertainty of living in a new place with severe social disruptions and reduced access to education and health facilities. What this underscores is the need to make the best use of all available space, densify development where feasible, and improve conditions in situ. It is welcome that a joint safety audit with the IIT will be conducted on public infrastructure, in the wake of the bridge collapse. But such inspections must be regularly carried out and quick remedial steps taken.

The system is always correct.

Allies, interrupted: on India-U.S. ties

There are enough signs that relations between India and the United States have suffered, with officials in both capitals now freely conceding that their interests are diverging. From the U.S. side, policy decisions by President Donald Trump to walk out of the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, and the U.S. Congress’s CAATSA law sanctioning Iran and Russia have set up an inevitable conflict. Mr. Trump’s insistence on tough sanctions against all those continuing to engage with Iran and Russia limits India’s options on energy security and defence procurement. During her visit last week, Nikki Haley, the U.S. envoy to the UN, told India to “revise” its relationship with Iran; this line is expected to be reiterated by U.S. interlocutors in the coming days. Added to this confrontation is the U.S.’s tough policy on trade tariffs, applied to ally and adversary alike, including India. For its part, the Narendra Modi government has taken a policy turn away from four years of a pro-U.S. tilt. Mr. Modi’s speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue last month, in which he invoked the long-lapsed phrase “strategic autonomy”, set at rest any doubt that there is a reset in his foreign policy. Since January, he has personally reached out to the Chinese and Russian Presidents in informal summits, and invited the Iranian President to Delhi. At variance with the U.S. position on limiting engagement with these very countries, India promised to raise oil imports from Iran this year, committed to far greater engagement on the Chabahar port project and oilfields in Iran, while negotiating a $5.5 billion deal with Russia for the S-400 Triumf missile systems. These will trigger U.S. sanctions unless the two countries reach a compromise.

What is more troubling for bilateral ties is that despite the obvious problems, the political will to address these issues is now considerably diminished. In contrast to his meetings with the Russian and Chinese leaderships, Mr. Modi has had little contact with Mr. Trump since their meeting in Manila last November, which by all accounts did not go well. Now, the postponement of the Indian Foreign and Defence Ministers’ “2+2” dialogue with their U.S. counterparts has denied the governments a chance to gather together the fraying bilateral threads. It is imperative that the dialogue be quickly rescheduled. While the U.S. has traditionally applied pressure on its allies to limit their engagement with countries it considers to be threats to the international order, the manner in which deadlines have been publicly issued by the State Department twice this week will only make its demands more difficult for India to even consider. India must now decide how best to deal with the ultimatums, with U.S. sanctions kicking in by November. The clock is ticking on the relationship.