New Delhi, November 16
Amid allegations of payment of bribe by the Reliance group to the
Iraqi regime to get oil contracts, the government is scrutinising the
accounts records of some the companies named by the Volcker committee
in the $64 billion Iraqi oil-for-food programme.
“We have asked a few companies to come forward and share with us
some records and documents,” Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told
media persons here at the inaugural session of the three-day Economic
Editors’ Conference.
“It is premature to discuss too much about it,” the Finance
Minister said on the issue of possible probe into 135-odd Indian
companies alleged to have illegally profited in the UN programme under
the erstwhile Saddam Hussain regime in Iraq.
Mr Chidambaram said the Congress had on its own issued a
four-and-a-half page legal notice to the UN demanding full disclosure
of documents on the basis of the Paul Volcker Committee arrived at its
conclusions.
