No unauthorized person is involved in budget formulation: former Finance Minister Sharma

Former finance minister Janardan Sharma has dismissed allegations that he as finance minister allowed two unauthorized persons to change tax rates in the budget for the current fiscal year a day before it was presented in the parliament.

To the parliamentary probe committee formed to investigate the allegations, he said only authorized persons prepared the budget for the fiscal year 2022-23 which he presented in the parliament on May 29.

“Sharma said that the allegations against him were fabricated,” said a member of the probe committee.

“He said the Finance Ministry prepared the budget only with the involvement of the authorized officials. He also argued that unauthorized persons’ entry is not possible.”

The probe committee was formed after widespread criticism in the wake of media reports that Sharma invited two outsiders to tweak tax rates on the night of May 28.

Following the formation of the 11-member probe committee on July 6, Sharma resigned the same day to “facilitate” the investigation process.

The parliamentary committee has so far also questioned senior officials from the ministry and journalists broke the story about Sharma.

Ministry officials including Finance Secretary Madhu Kumar Marasini and Revenue Secretary Krishna Hari Pushkar along with Budget Division chief Chakra Bahadur Budha, Administrative Division chief Kedar Nath Sharma too have dismissed allegations that there were outsiders in the ministry to alter tax rates.

After failing to get the CCTV footage of the night of May 28, the probe committee on Wednesday handed over the hard drive to the Central Police Forensic Science Laboratory to investigate whether the footage was deleted and it could be recovered.