"I have complete evidence of the conspiracy against me"

Has your pace of work in the Urban Affairs Ministry been too fast for the liking of those around you?

I have made no secret of the fact that I am a person in a hurry. My Government has promised to build two million houses this year, out of which 750,000 are in the urban sector. But the budget has not given me a single rupee. I do not want to destroy my reputation by being a minister for a year in which I havedelivered nothing. To build 750,000 houses without a rupee is a magician’s job. It requires some unorthodox procedures and getting rid of some absurd rules of business. I have dealt with files which have been pending in my department for 43 years.

I agree with you but our public servants are responsible for this. Without their collaboration nothing could be done. On the other hand, I consider it a national waste to demolish things. We want to build more houses and demolishing them looks like an absurdity. There are ways of punishing people and one of them is levying of heavy penalty.

During the very first meeting held on the MRTS, it was not me but others who raised strong objections, mainly on how and why the metro had not been integratedwith the existing ring railway. When I questioned my bureaucrats, the only answer I got was that all this has been considered before. I told them that this does not satisfy me since the project was for Rs 30,000 crore and that, as a lawyer, the manner in which the general consultants were selected disturbs me.

Ultimately everyone, the railway minister and the chief minister agreed to the changes but the bureaucrats kept lobbying against it. Even the Japanese Ambassador saw me. I made it very clear to him that you are not giving me a grant, you are giving me a loan and that I am getting money cheaper elsewhere. Tell me, why is the Japanese Ambassador so anxious? It is these people who have instigated him. It’s almost anti-national (their views).

Subramanian Swamy is saying that I have given away property worth Rs 350 crore tosomebody. This is not true. That man (Pawan Sachdeva) has given them crores but without complying with their part of the contract, they proceeded to forfeit it. Because they wanted to give it to someone else and he is singled out for unfair treatment. I have invited the CBI Director to, first, find out how Swamy got the documents and two, to also look into the charges against me. In the Ministry I wrote out a long order…

Yes. On every file I give a long judgement. I hear the bureaucrats and the party and deliver it there itself. I have always argued that administrative procedures should be judicialised and this is what I have done. Otherwise you will have fruitless litigation. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA), for instance, has 20,000 pending cases. Everyday I receive cases in which I feel some of the DDA chaps deserve to be shot. They are so callous and cruel. I am the one who ended their illegal monopoly in housing which they were enjoying from 1961. What were the ministersand bureaucrats doing all this time?

I will show you the file. I made the final judgement after hearing the parties. Then they wrote another six-page note. I studied it and said you have told me nothing new. Like this it went on. Ultimately, they wrote that I was supposed to comply with rule so and so. Then I wrote back that I was warning you for the last time and that under rule 3 the whole Ministry was to function under my instructions. Once I decide a matter, your only remedy is to go to the Cabinet Secretary not the Prime Minister.

I do not care if she complained. I had already sent the file to the Prime Minister by them. I told him if you find anything wrong, here is my resignation. I will go. I have given up a legal practice worth crores (of rupees) not tomake money here. This ministership has done me no good.

On August 7 itself, I had told the Prime Minister to effect transfers at the top level. Of, at least, four persons. What is worse is that after I have given an order on a file, they go to one of my officers and ask him to make adverse notes on it. That man is an honest man and refused to do it. They served a show-cause notice on him. Fortunately, they are so stupid that in the show-cause, the first clause against him is that you refused to comment on file number so and so. That man went and complained to a Member of Parliament: that there was a conspiracy against the Minister and it was the MP who sent me a fax message about it. I then asked for the show-cause notice and confronted the officer. I have complete evidence of the conspiracy against me.

Iwill feel a sense of relief and I will feel a sense of sympathy with those who arrive at that decision. I am convinced people running the ministry do not want this Government to succeed.