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Justice will be done in Jaya's cases, says Sinha

Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha has asserted that justice will be done in all cases concerning All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo J Jayalalitha. He also denied that his powers had been clipped because R K Kumar, minister of state for finance, was given the responsibility of handling revenue, banking and insurance departments.

Reacting to the reallocation of responsibilities in the finance ministry, Sinha told a private television channel that it was done willingly and not under instructions.

Asked whether it was proper for Jayalalitha's former chartered accountant to have been given the powers to monitor the investigation and Enforcement Directorate when his party boss was facing serious charges, Sinha said it was a perspective of a 'sick mind' to think that the powers to transfer an income tax officer was the total responsibility of a finance minister.

In today's situation no agency -- whether it was the Enforcement Directorate or the Central Bureau of Investigation -- was outside the public purview. Judicial intervention had made sure that nobody went out of line. Under such situation, it did not matter who is looking after what brief. From his own experience as a former finance minister, he knew that a finance minister or minister of state for finance had very little role to play as far as the Enforcement Directorate was concerned. It more or less functions autonomously, he remarked.

Sinha also maintained that it was not his impression that Kumar had been handed over the functional autonomy of monetary policy, credit policy and the investigative and enforcement agencies. "People don't understand the way the finance ministry functions.... Only time will define," he said.

Asked whether the finance ministry would continue to prosecute cases against Jayalalitha objectively, Sinha replied it better remain so because the ministry is not the final word. "If we deviate, we are also subject to the discipline of the courts. Justice will be done in all cases."

UNI

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