New Delhi, Oct 03: In an aggressive move to push disinvestment in the face of Supreme Court verdict halting disinvestment in two oil PSUs, HPCL and BPCL, the government today said it could sell stake in IOC, a fortune 500 company, exercising its executive power while looking into judicial and legal options to pursue the sell off programme. "We are not taking a confrontationist view of the Supreme Court judgement. As executive option we can look at effecting a swap since Indian oil was not constituted under act of Parliament," Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie told reporters after the meeting of the cabinet committee on disinvestment, chaired by Prime Minister A B Vajpayee.

Shourie said that IOC's retail marketing operations could be disinvested either through public offer or to a strategic buyer after splitting the corporation in two or three entities and added that as part of its commitment to reform process the CCD also decided to go ahead with disinvestment in six other PSUs including STC, engineers India and Balmer Lawrie. The minister said that while government would look at judicial option for a clarification or review of the Supreme Court judgement, which had far reaching implication for the entire disinvestment programme, it would also simultaneously explore the possibility of going to Parliament for legal changes in pursuit of disinvestment.
The ministries of petroleum and disinvestment would work out within next three months all the possibilities of restructuring IOC for divestment or transfer of some assets to HPCL and BPCL, Shourie said adding that executive option was within the freedom given to the government under the judgement on the two oil PSUs.
Bureau Report