Karat demands probe against all beneficiaries

Ahmedabad, Aug 5: CPI (M) General Secretary Prakash Karat today said the UPA goverment should have asked the Pathak Authority to conduct a thorough probe against all the four beneficiaries mentioned in the Volcker report's disclosures regarding lraq's oil-for Food programme.

Mr Karat told reporters that the Pathak Authority, a one-man inquiry committee, had a limited scope of probing the involvement of Mr. Natwar Singh and Congress in the scam. In fact, the greatest beneficiary of the deal, a private oil-company was ''left untouched'' which had garnered major chunk of the cake.

Later when asked, the CPI (M) leader disclosing the name of the company said, ''Of course, It was Reliance!'' He said, the Pathak Authority should have been asked to probe in total by investigating against all the beneficiaries.

When asked about his party's reaction on the Pathak Authority's report, the CPI (M) leader said, he has not received a copy of the report so far. Once it is studied by him and other senior party leaders, the Party will give its reactions.'' While touching upon India's nuclear deal with US, Mr Karat said, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had made a fresh N-deal with US on July 5, 2005, and later informed the Parliament a slight change has been made in the deal compared to the one made previously.

He further stated that the Indian Parliament should have debated the deals.

''In fact, it is two Houses of US Parliament which are going to debate on the act to be made for controlling India's Nuclear programme. One House has already made the debate and passed a bill on the issue and it will be debated in another House now,'' Mr Karat added.

The CPI (M) leader further stated that Indian Parliament should debate on the issue to put Indian perspective before the US government and Parliament on the nuclear deals made between the two countries.

UNI

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