Govt wants to take over Sonia's fiefdom
KAVEREE BAMZAI
Indian Express
June 9, 1999
Title: Govt wants to take over Sonia's fiefdom
Author: KAVEREE BAMZAI
Publication: Indian Express
Date: June 9, 1999
NEW DELHI, JUNE 8: The Government has sought a go-ahead from the Delhi
High Court to take over Congress President Sonia Gandhi's fiefdom, the
Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA). In a
carefully-worded affidavit to the High Court last week, the Ministry
for Human Resource Development (HRD) has requested that the ``moveable
and immoveable properties made available by the Government to IGNCA''
be attached. The HRD Ministry has done this after getting a favourable
opinion from Attorney General Soli Sorabjee that the amendments which
made Sonia Gandhi, R Venkataraman, P V Narasimha Rao, H Y Sharada
Prasad and Kapila Vatsayan life trustees were not valid. Though the
BJP-led Government had been debating this move for some time now, it
says it was constrained to move decisively when its letters on
November 3 and January 27 to the IGNCA were not answered.
The IGNCA was set up in 1987 as an autonomous trust under the HRD
Ministry and originally had seven trustees -- with the late Rajiv
Gandhi beingpresident and Kapila Vatsayan (now a life trustee) being
member-secretary. The Government had provided a fund of Rs 50 crore
and an additional Rs 84 crore for a new building.
According to the HRD affidavit, the amendments to the original trust
deed are invalid on three grounds: because no ``prior written
approval'' was sought from the Government; because no clearance was
asked for from the Finance and HRD ministries; and the move wasn't
brought before the Cabinet for reconsideration.
In the affidavit, the Government has said: ``The checks and balances
built into the system'' were removed by the 1995 amendment. It has
added: ``Such a fundamental alteration is against the conception of
the trust by its makers. No power of amendment provided in the trust
deed can be used to alter its basic structure.''
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