Ready to face PAC, PM writes to panel chief

DHNS

• ’Committee will take a call on Manmohan offer’

New Delhi, 27 December 2010: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday wrote to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) expressing his readiness to appear before the panel which is looking into the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

 

Committee chairman Murli Manohar Joshi, who did not reject the offer, said the PAC would “take an appropriate decision at an appropriate time” when to call Singh.  The BJP leadership was said to be none too happy that its senior leader Joshi was apparently not opposed to the prime minister appearing before the committee. However, till late in the evening, its leaders did not go public over the issue. The BJP is strident in its demand—like the rest of the Opposition—for a joint parliamentary committee to be set up to probe the 2G scam.

 

In a remark that may further upset the BJP, Joshi said the PAC might look into the telecom policy-related issues of even the BJP-led NDA rule period before 2004. “Our agenda is only 2G; but, if required, we can go back and look into previous reports,” Joshi told mediapersons after the PAC meeting.

 

The PAC held discussions with Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai. It was under Rai that the CAG came out with a report estimating the loss that the exchequer presumably suffered at a whopping Rs 1.76 lakh crore in the scandal.

 

Joshi said “the PAC will decide if the prime minister is required to depose before the PAC or not. The Parliamentary convention states that Lok Sabha Speaker’s permission is needed before calling the prime minister.

 

“Under PAC rules, no minister can be called unless the Speaker asks him or her,” he said. He also clarified that the CAG was not summoned by the PAC. The prime minister, who wrote a letter to Joshi on appearing before the PAC, had earlier surprised everyone by the offer he made at the AICC plenary session on December 20.

 

In his letter to Joshi, Manmohan Singh said: “In view of recent propaganda that the prime minister is unwilling to be questioned by a Parliamentary committee, I would like to inform you that I am willing to appear before the PAC should the committee chooses to seek clarifications from the prime minister, though I believe there is no precedent of the prime minister appearing before a PAC.”

 

At the PAC meeting, the Congress members wanted the prime minister’s offer to be accepted but the non-UPA members opposed it saying rules did not permit this. The Congress members insisted that the panel take cognisance of the prime minister’s offer and call him for “consultations” in the matter.