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Opposition demands Sinha's resignation on US-64 issue

Opposition members in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday demanded the resignation of Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha over the fall in value of UTI's flagship scheme US-64, even as he denied influencing the decision to freeze the scheme for six months.

Chairman Krishan Kant, however, asked the Opposition members not to seek resignation or ask the government to take responsibility on any issue during the question hour which, he said was intended to allow members to seek reply for their queries from the government.

"I deny it with all the emphasis at my command (that the finance ministry was in the know of the US-64 problems earlier)", Sinha said in his reply.

He said the finance secretary received the letter from the UTI only on June 30 about the freeze in sale and re-purchase of US-64 units till the year-end and the then UTI (ex-) chairman P S Subramanyam drew his attention to it only on July 2 during a meeting.

Sinha said his ministry could not take immediate action as the balance sheet of the UTI had to be declared soon by the Board of Trustees and any intervention could have severely affected the interest of the country's largest mutual fund and the Rs 20 million investors.

He said the CBI was looking into the issue of large purchase of equities of a company by the UTI and other matters.

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