July 15: The Ministry of Finance has refused to cooperate with the parliamentary probe committee formed to investigate the allegations against former finance minister Janardan Sharma. The probe committee’s schedule was affected due to the non-cooperation by the finance ministry.

The 11-member probe committee couldn’t hold any discussion on Thursday after the ministry failed to submit the details sought by the committee.

Secretary of the committee Surendra Aryal informed New Business Age that they could not hold any discussion on the main agenda after the finance ministry did not provide the details and documents related to the then finance minister Sharma. He said that the committee had instructed the ministry on Wednesday to provide the details and relevant documents by 2 pm on Thursday.

“We had requested the finance ministry to provide us the details by 2 pm on Thursday but they did not cooperate. Since we didn’t have the documents, we couldn’t focus the discussion on the main agenda,” said Aryal.

He added that the committee will grill both the secretaries of the finance ministry regarding this issue.

“We will resume the discussion at 10 am on Friday after receiving the documents from the ministry, We will hold further discussions with the secretaries at 12 pm,” added Aryal.

He further said that the meeting on Thursday decided to approve the work schedule in order to complete the investigation within the given deadline. The committee has been instructed to finish the investigation within 10 days after starting the probe.

The committee is headed by its senior-most member Laxman Lal Karna after the committee members failed to choose its chairman through consensus.

Sharma has been accused of changing the tax rates in favour of certain business houses. It was also reported that Sharma had allowed unauthorized persons to enter the ministry on the eve of the budget announcement, drawing criticism from all quarters.