NGO goes to court, wants Sambit Patra, Shashi Shanker appointments on ONGC board cancelled

A Delhi-based NGO has moved the Delhi High Court seeking cancellation of the appointment of Shashi Shanker and BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra, as the chairman & managing director, and independent director, respectively, on the board of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. The HC will hear the PIL on November 1. Energy Watchdog, through counsel Prashant Bhushan, has alleged that Shanker’s appointment was contrary to the public interest, as he was suspended in a tender matter and was also recently reprimanded by the CVC on a procurement matter. Such an official “should not be heading an organization which has to deal with Rs 29,000 crore capex budget for the current financial year, and about `150,000 crore in the next five years. Besides, the government has announced merger of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd into ONGC, thus the merged entity is likely to be a much bigger organisation worth $40 billion”, it said.

Alleging that Shankar has “a tainted past”, the petition stated that the vigilance division of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas had on February 23, 2015 suspended him for committing “gross misconduct” in purchase of blowout preventers (BOP) for its offshore projects. However, his suspension was revoked on July 17, 2015 citing the Supreme Court’s general observation that a suspended officer should be reinstated if an agency failed to file a chargesheet within 90 days. It also cited a newspaper report that the CVC had also sought an explanation from Shanker in another case of planning to hire rigs on nomination basis. But when the petitioner under the RTI Act sought the complete information on what happened after the suspension order, the CVC provided a copy of the vigilance clearance dated July 7, 2017, but said “information sought by the applicant is not available with this public authority”.

This CVC’s stand was contrary to what was stated by the minister for petroleum and natural gas in the Rajya Sabha on this issue, where he had stated that the matter of Shanker’s suspension was closed on the advice of CVC on August 9, 2017 as he had no direct role in the award of the contract.

According to the PIL, the national spokesperson of the ruling BJP at the Centre is quite active in day-to-day politics and cannot play the role of an independent director, being “related to promoters”, thus this is in a violation of Section 149(6) of the Companies Act, 2013. “His selection process is also flawed as his name did not appear in the Data Bank of eligible persons willing to act as Independent Directors as required to be prepared for the purpose as per Section 150 of the Companies Act, 2013. Moreover, State largesse cannot be passed on to a private political person in this manner,” it said.