CCD meet to find a way out for BPCL, HPCL privatisation

NEW DELHI: In a bid to push forward the disinvestment programme, government is likely to choose tomorrow between a political or legal option to find a way out for privatisation of the two oil PSUs, HPCL and BPCL, halted by the Supreme Court verdict.
Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment, chaired by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, will meet here tomorrow to consider various options presented by Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie after his elaborate consultations with Law Minister Arun Jaitley, to handle the situation arising out of the verdict where the court asked the government to halt HPCL, BPCL disinvestment and get an approval of Parliament.
Although lined up in the CCD agenda are a slew of companies like Engineers India Ltd and Balmer Lawrie, which are in the final stages of disinvestment and where the price bids are now to be called, all eyes would be on what decisions CCD takes to resolve the crisis which has virtually thrown the privatisation programme in a state of uncertainty.
The agenda note, circulated to concerned Ministries recently, does not contain the option paper although sources said this could be included later.
As a prelude to the CCD meeting, Shourie has already met Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani to discuss how to proceed with the disinvestment programme in the wake of fears that certain observations made in the ruling could trigger a plethora of cases in other PSUs, particularly due to reference made by the court to a `constitutional angle''. more PTI MBI RHP VLC 10021104 D Government now has two options on the disinvestment impasse - to go for a legal recourse or find a political solution to get the approval of Parliament for sale of 34.01 per cent stake in HPCL and 35.2 per cent stake in BPCL.
A review of the apex court judgement may not be a favoured option as it would involve the same bench.
Government is learnt to be weighing the option of approaching the Supreme Court to seek clarifications on its ruling, especially as the Madras High Court recently asked Centre to hold the final disinvestment of Madras Fertilisers till a decision was taken on a petition challenging the PSU''s privatisation. It had, however, allowed Government to go ahead with the procedure.
Another legal option before the Government could be to seek a constitution bench review.
It is unclear whether Shourie has been able to convince Jaitley about the merits of the exercise, sources said.