The controversies over Swaraj who helped the absconder IPL czar Lalit Modi’s entry into India and that on Raje and her MP son who helped Lalit Modi by becoming his business partner have since been overtaken by the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh’s massive Vyapam scam involving a large number of VIPs. But it is the controversy over how the Badals have raised and expand their business empire which has sharpened the raging debate over conflict of interest.

The BJP has refuted the charge that Sushma and Raje has committed any illegality in Modigate case. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has intriguingly been maintaining silence in the Modigate and some other controversies. Now the top brass of RSS has also followed in Modi’s footsteps by not reacting on the reports alleging that some RSS functionaries have been the beneficiaries of Vyapam kickbacks.

Treading a contrary path, the Akali leadership has been vocally defending their doing business while in power. They have denied that this implied conflict of interest. In his self-righteous comments, the 52-year-old chief minister’s son and deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal says “business is no longer a dirty word for political families. All my businesses are above board. The accounts of all my companies are audited and I pay all taxes. Is there a law that a politician cannot have business interests?”

Sukhbir’s party general secretary and MP Prem Singh Chandumajra has also defended the ruling Badal family’s doing business while in power saying if Tatas can do business why not the Badal family!

Sukhbir and Chandumajra are not wrong! The Badals business, as Sukhbir has claimed, must be above board. His empire’s chartered accountants and legal experts must have taken care to ensure that Sukhbir’s businesses look “above board”. But Chandumajra needs to be reminded that though most business tycoons do not hold constitutional positions or seats of power but with their money power and high level political and government contacts they get policies framed designed to promote their businesses.

All this makes a mockery of the morality in public life which our politicians never tire of claiming they observe.

It is in the above backdrop that the Akali leadership’s claim that their doing business does not imply conflict of interest needs to be judged. The facts speak otherwise.

In the ruling Badals case, it will not be out of context to briefly narrate how Orbit Resorts Company with Sukhbir as its Managing Director laid the foundation of the family’s business empire.

The Resorts was set up on the 71,000 square metre plot on the Delhi-Gurgaon bypass allotted on 14 September 1989 when the Badals family friend Devi Lal was Haryana chief minister. On Company’s failure to set up the project within stipulated period, the plot was resumed by Haryana State Industrial Development Corporation on 2.1.1995 when Bhajan Lal was in power. After prolonged litigation the Supreme Court disposed of the Badals SLP on 3 December 1999 after the Badals family friend Om Parkash Chautala came to power by toppling the Bansi Lal’s Haryana Vikas Party government (May 11, 1996-July 23, 1999). Bansi Lal’s coalition partner BJP had joined hands with Chautala for toppling Bansi Lal and becoming Chautala’s ruling ally.

The Chautala government changed its advocate two days before December 3, 1999 hearing date of the Badals SLP in the Supreme Court. Bansi Lal had then told me that the Badals stand was not contested on behalf of the state government and their SLP was disposed of by the Supreme Court which nullified the plot’s resumption. “It was more like a collusive act on the bidding of Chief Minister Chautala to serve the vested interests of his family friend Badal. BJP was then a ruling partner in Punjab’s Parkash Singh Badal-led alliance government.”

Land allotment to Orbit Resorts later invited adverse comments from Comptroller and Auditor General in a report tabled in Haryana assembly. The report said “The company (HSIDC) has not only been favoured to the extent of Rs.80.94 lakh in the allotment of land for the (Badals) holiday and health resort, but has also violated the guidelines contained in the industrial policy of the state. ……When the CAG’s staff made queries on the subject in July 2001, HSIDC management said that the plot was allotted as per the directions of the state government”

Thanks to Orbit Resorts, Sukhbir’s money-minting business empire has expanded horizontally and vertically in fields including hospitality, media and transport. In their nomination affidavits filed during 2009 Lok Sabha and 2012 Punjab assembly elections Sukhbir and his Union Minister wife Harsimrat Kaur declared their combined assets at Rs.108.16 crore in 2012 compared to Rs 60 crore in 2009, showing phenomenal increase of over Rs 48 crore in five years!!

Sukhbir must be right in saying that all his business is above board. But the Badals seem to be heading for tough times with the Punjab and Haryana High Court taking suo motu cognizance of a handwritten anonymous letter saying that Badals had “amassed wealth at the cost of the state” and should be sent behind the bars. The writer said “I, a government employee, cannot do any business in his or his family’s name, how come Badals are doing business?”

The Bench has put the State of Punjab, the DGP, State Transport Commissioner and Orbit Aviation on notice and fixed July 30 as the next date of hearing in the matter.

Punjab’s political scenario reminds Abraham Lincoln’s saying: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” (IPA Service)