In a day filled with high drama, 11 of the 21 members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday “rejected” the draft report on the 2G spectrum allocation scam. The report had been leaked on Wednesday. It had made critical references to the Prime Minister.
The seven Congress MPs who ‘voted' against the report were supported by MPs from the DMK (2), SP (1), and BSP (1). Soon after the meeting began at 11 a.m, all the seven Congress MPs and two MPs of DMK submitted a letter that said the draft report was unacceptable as it was one-sided and also inaccurate. It said there was “incongruity” between the narrative part and the recommendations. Mr Saifuddin Soz (Congress) sought to move a motion to reject the draft report. The PAC Chairman, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, also came in for some criticism for the report leak on Wednesday.
The members also orally alleged that the report had been “outsourced”. The PAC Chairman, however, continued to hear the views of all members for nearly two hours. He assured members that he would address their concerns after lunch.
But when the meeting reconvened at 4 p.m, Dr Joshi walked out in a huff within 10 minutes. He told reporters that he had “adjourned” the meeting because he was not allowed to speak. But the members insisted on moving the resolution to reject the draft report.
Even as the Chairman said that he had adjourned the meeting, the 11 members of the Congress, the DMK, the SP, the BSP combine continued with the meeting. They proceeded to elect Mr Soz as “chairman for today's meeting”.
Then a resolution moved by Mr Siva (DMK) to reject the draft report was passed. Mr Soz later told reporters that he would hand over the resolution to the Speaker, Ms Meira Kumar, who is out of Delhi.
Asked why he did not put the motion moved by Mr Soz to vote, Mr Joshi said, “this was because they alleged that the draft report was not the committee's report and that it had been outsourced.” He also said that this amounted to “casting aspersions on the entire secretariat”.
The term of the current PAC ends on April 30. When asked by Business Line on the possibility of Dr Joshi, who is tipped to continue as the PAC Chairman, again picking up the 2G spectrum allocation issue for investigation, Mr P.K. Bansal, Parliamentary Affairs Minister, did not rule this out.
Mr Bansal, however, maintained that in his view the draft report of the current PAC had been rejected and that all eyes were now on the JPC, which meets on May 18.
The current 21-member PAC has seven representatives from the Congress, four fro0m the BJP, two each from the AIADMK and the BJP, and one each from the Shiv Sena, the BJD, the JD(U), the SP, the BSP and the CPI(M).