by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
PM cracks whip, clips home ministry's wings
New body to oversee security clearances
Harish Gupta
New Delhi, April 8
Prime Minister Narendra Modi cracked his whip and the powers of Union Home Ministry have been clipped if not taken away all together. The whip came when the Cabinet Secretariat set up an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) over-see orders of the Union Home Ministry relating to security clearances. This IMC will over-see all cases of security clearances relating to “ease of doing business” as part of Modi’s vision of fast-tracking investment, jobs and opportunities in India.
All companies/individuals desirous of setting up industries, companies, businesses are given security clearances by the MHA. This clearance is also required in cases of expanding existing business venture.
The MHA undertakes a thorough screening of companies, their ownership, route of investments and origin of such investments and antecedents of the directors & owners. The MHA vets these cases with the help of intelligence agencies and other such mechanism to which no other ministry has access. But often MHA and other Ministries are engaged in a bitter tussle over years for security clearances. The worst happened when proposal to grant security clearance to Sun TV, when its owners Maran brothers were chargesheeted by the CBI and Enforcement Directorate for bribing and corruption in Aircel-Maxis scam and for setting up illegal telephone exchange. Finally, Home ministry toned down its objections and home secretary was sacked. But there were many such cases including foreign direct investment in the Telecom, power & port sectors.
After discussions at the highest level in the PMO it was decided that let the Home Ministry continue with its mandate of security clearances exercise. But all its negative recommendations will go to the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) comprising of officials of Finance, Corporate, Commerce Ministries and Niti Ayog. The IMC will have powers to veto the recommendation and opinions of the Home Ministry and even send back it for further examination in a time bound manner.
The Cabinet secretariat has also directed the MHA that it must complete scrutiny of all cases of security clearances within a stipulated period of 45 -60 days rather than taking its own sweet time. In several cases, the MHA sat over the clearances for several years on one ground or the other.
The creation of IMC will help the concerned ministries, departments and even state governments who are normally scared to question the wisdom of the MHA. One of the reasons cited by the PMO was that though many of the issues highlighted by the MHA/security agencies may be important. But they may not be so vital as to necessitate stoppage of the said investment or project. However, the Ministry/Department/State Government concerned is not able to or willing to take full responsibility in this regard. And the project get stalled or delayed or canceled causing huge loss of investments. This also clearly goes against the spirit of the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ on which Government has been working seriously for the last two years,” said the two-page order.
Therefore, it is necessary that there is a “mechanism to take a holistic view of the observations made by security agencies on economic, corporate of criminal proceedings involving the proponent company or its directors,” the Cabinet Secretariat said.
The creation of IMC will also help the officers concverned not to be too much scared of the Prevention of Corruption Act while over-ruling the MHA.
The order further said,“Once this committee has seen the observations made by the MHA or the security agencies indicating that the investment/projects, its activities and/or directors are not a threat to national security, it will proceed to look into other observations.
“If other remarks or observations of the MHA or security agencies have been found to be inconsequential or irrelevant with regard to any other national or public interest, then the committee would record the same and recommend the investment/project,” said the Order.
