Mr. Charan Singh’s statement in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday on the land deal between a nephew of his and the UP State Warehousing Corporation headed by his son-in-law should silence even his detractors. It leaves little room for doubt that he has in any way used his position to promote the transaction. To begin with, it is by no means established that the price of Rs. 8.70 lakhs which the corporation had agreed to pay for the three-acre plot at Kashipur in Nainital district was in fact excessive. A special committee of the UP Vidhan Parishad is to go into the matter and fair-minded individuals should be willing to await its findings, especially when the deal itself has been cancelled by the seller, Mr. Charan Singh’s nephew. But even if it turns out that the price was excessive, the Union finance minister cannot be held responsible for it, however much one may stretch the definition of “responsibility”. He has had nothing to do with the nephew in question. He had objected to the son-in-law’s appointment as chairman of the Warehousing Corporation on the ground that the latter lacked the necessary experience. As soon as he came to know of the deal on March 15, he asked a UP cabinet minister to look into it. Three days later he requested the minister to get it annulled. What more could have been done in order to establish that he was a man of integrity? There is some dispute regarding the date of the transaction. But that is quite irrelevant. By virtue of his influence in UP, Mr. Charan Singh could have, if he so wished, influenced the UP government, irrespective of whether he was in the Union cabinet or not. The pertinent question, therefore, is whether he did so, and the answer must clearly be in the negative.
Before the facts regarding the market value of the land in question are properly established, it will be patently partisan for anyone to come to any firm conclusion and to say whether or not some individuals have made an unnecessary fuss over the transaction. Meanwhile it is obvious that the matter should not have been raised in the Rajya Sabha and Mr. Charan Singh’s name dragged into it. The deal had taken place in UP. Some state legislators had already taken up the matter in the legislature in Lucknow, which means that it could not have been hushed up. Why then should it have figured in the Rajya Sabha? Just because a minister’s relation were involved? An atmosphere has been created in which reckless charges are made and accepted about men in public life, surprisingly enough often by public men themselves. Surely they must know that this is bringing all of them into disrepute and with them the democratic system. This is not a plea for turning a blind eye towards corruption in high places but for restraint, understanding and concern for facts.
The Times of India, 30 March 1979