Railways minister Mamata Banerjee locked horns with her cabinet colleagues, finance's Pranab Mukherjee and home's P Chidmabaram, at a recent meeting over the treatment meted out to government servants accused of corruption. The troika were at a meeting of the group of ministers on corruption. While Banerjee maintained that she was on the same page with others when it came to action against corruption, she said that any action, however, should not violate any one's fundamental rights.

The group of ministers, advising the government on the discretionary powers of union ministers, says that there are hardly any such powers which can be grossly misused and bracketed under graft. An eight page document lists just 32 small discretaionary powers enjoyed by 14 ministers. But the GoM has favoured the relinquishing of all discretionary powers.

As a member of the GoM noted after the meeting, these are the discretionary powers conceptualised for public good and it would be foolish if the ministers are not allowed to extend a helping hand to the deserving needy persons by vacating such powers.

The whole issue of the discretionary powers was brought into focus by Congress president Sonia Gandhi at the party's plenary session here in December in the context of the discretions by the Maharashtra chief minister and ministers in the Adarsh Housing Society scam of Mumbai.

Gandhi had called for divesting of such powers saying that they lead to partisanship and corruption. However, she never having been a part of the governmnet doesnot realsise how little these powers are actually needed given the great sway ministers hold over bureaucrats.

The home minister tops the list with the highest number of discretionary powers with seven, followed by the tribal affairs minister with five, railway minister with four, tourism, telecom and external affairs minister with two each.

Just sample some of these powers:

The agriculture minister can appoint the government nominees in cooperative organisations like NAFED and managing committees such as NIAM and SFAC and nomination of non-officials on autonomous institutions like Coconut Development Board, National Horticulture Board and Joint Hindi Advisory Committee.

Minister for fertilisers has powers to appoint personal staff and two farmers' representatives in the fertiliser advisory forum.

Telecom minister has discretion to nominate members of the telephone advisory committee (TAC), sanction out-of-turn telephone connections and approve issue of stamps on dignitaries, subject to guidelines and annual stamp issue programme. MoS telecom can also sanction out-of-turn telephone connection.

Discretionary powers of the home minister

• Central assistance to civilian victims of terrorist, communal, naxal violence;
• Relief to needy persons who have served the nation in the political, social, philanthropic and other fields;
• Rewards to persons in recognition of outstanding deeds of valour and public good;
• Subventions to deserving institution rendering services to the nation in various needs;
• Relief to persons decorated with national awards in extreme cases of distress for their and their family members' medical treatment;
• Provision of Rs 1 crore under HM's discretionary grants in financial year 2011-12; and
• Release of grant in any other exceptionally deserving cases.

The tribal affairs minister has the second highest discretions on five grounds:

• Aid to individuals and institutes promoting welfare and development of STs;
• Education to exceptionally brilliant tribal children whose parents are no more or whose parents' income from all sources does not exceed Rs 5000 a month;
• Medical treatment to those whose income from all sources does not exceed Rs 5000 a month;
• A grant by minister shall not exceed Rs 10,000 in a year;
• Total budget for a year under the discretionary funds of the tribal affairs minister is Rs 2 lakh but no grant has been sanctioned during the last three years under this head.

The railway minister can grant concession on requests besides those permissible under the tariff, grant enhanced ex-gratia to victims of train accidents, issue complementary card and cheque passes to persons and organisations engaged in social, cultural, educational, sports and welfare activities as also on welfare grounds and she can also nominate chairmen and members of the passenger amenities committee and passenger services committee.

The external affairs minister has discretion to grant diplomatic passport under Category 'F' and allot a portion of Haj seats. The tourism minister has powers to nominate members on various advisory committees and boards of autonomous institutions and approve central financial assistance (CFA) priority to projects.

The commerce minister enjoys powers to select any officer from the panel sent by civil services board. The human resources development minister has no discretionary powers in admissions and appointments in schools or colleges but has a discretionary fund of Rs 4 lakhs a year for providing financial assistance for cases of hardship.

As regards the mine minister, the document says the mines and minerals bill is being brought to Parliament for minimising discretionary powers of the minister. The steel minister does not have discretionary powers but as chairman of Steel Consumers Council, he directly nominates some 400 non-official members.

There is only one scheme of national welfare fund for sportspersons in which the sports minister has the discretion to sanction assistance in deserving cases even to those who technically are non-eligible, depending upon facts and circumstances of each case. He also has the discretion to decide quantum of assistance.