The Board's lapse and apology - Nalini issue.
We are not commenting on the Nalini Chidambaram issue right now. It may be, after all, a small issue blown out of proportions. Mr. and Mrs. Chidambaram are highly paid advocates and it is hard to believe that Mrs. Chidambaram will run after the Income Tax department for a couple of lakhs. But that for another day. What is really perplexing is the crawling behaviour of a statutory Board like the CBDT. The Board’s press note says, “In retrospect, not informing the Finance Minister was a lapse on the part of the Board.” Well if there was an admitted lapse on the part of the Board, shouldn’t somebody be punished for that? If an inspector admits his lapse, will the Board let him go? And this lapse of the Board may well cost the FM his job. Mrs Chidambaram doesn’t inform him; she is an independent lawyer – but what about the Board? Why did the Board not inform him? The Board press note ends with, “The Board regrets any embarrassment caused to the Finance Minister in this matter”.
Now the position is:-
Mrs. Chidambaram is right. She just accepted a case and she is not bound to inform her husband.
She is not exactly short of work or money.
Mr. Chidambaram is right as he did not know about this. He is not expected to know about all the cases his wife takes up.
But the CBDT is admittedly wrong and it has apologized.
This public apology must have caused more damage to the FM’s reputation than the original sin. If the Board had committed a lapse and embarrassed the FM, they should have gone and apologized to him instead of telling the whole world, “We are sorry”
And why it did not occur to any one in the high Board that it may embarrass the FM if his wife is appointed as a counsel