The report by the one-member panel comprising retired Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Mukul Mudgal, investigating allegations against Walmart, was submitted to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Thursday.
With this Walmart has moved a step closer to getting a reprieve from allegations of lobbying and bribing of officials, as the report states that in the absence of material evidence it was not possible to conclude whether the US-based retailer was on the wrong side of law.
No clean chit
The panel, however, did not give a clean chit to the company but suggested that the case could be investigated further depending on fresh disclosures made by Walmart to the US Congress.
Parliament
The Mudgal report will now be placed before Parliament for clearance.
The committee was set up last year following a pandemonium in Parliament after Walmart’s disclosure to the US Senate that since 2008 it had spent $25 million on lobbying in the US to gain entry into India. Lobbying is not illegal in the US.
Although Walmart officials clarified that this disclosure had nothing to do with political or Governmental contacts with Indian officials, Opposition pressure compelled the Government to go ahead with the investigations.
amiti.sen@thehindu.co.in