Congress is perturbed over Joshi circulating afresh with some changes the panel’s controversial report on 2G scam.
“The Chairman and the BJP are bent upon making the Committee political, partisan and motivated. The PAC Chairman or the PAC are not oxygen generating medical units to breathe life into a constitutionally dead PAC report,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said
BJP leader S S Ahluwalia however said, “The report was sent to the Speaker and the Speaker said the report has not been adopted. So naturally, if the report has not been adopted by a committee, then it has to be circulated to be adopted. So if it has been circulated, there is nothing wrong in it.”
Joshi circulated the report on Saturday to the PAC members with a forwarding letter that he was sending them the draft report again after consulting legal experts, rules of procedures and “past precedents”.
In his letter to the members, Joshi said he has consulted the experts, looked into precedents and referred to rule books and he believes the draft report is the “unfinished agenda of the previous PAC”.
On 28th June, Joshi had made a similar attempt to place the report before the new PAC but his effort was thwarted by its UPA members, following which it was decided that constitutional experts would be consulted on whether the report returned by Speaker Meira Kumar can be considered by it.
In his letter, Joshi has referred to the Speaker’s decision to return the report as it was not adopted by the committee as per rules.
The Speaker had returned the report to Joshi, who was reappointed as Chairman in May, suggesting it was not supported by the entire PAC whose term ended on 30th April.
The PAC meeting had on 28th April descended into chaos after the UPA managed to secure the support of BSP and SP to secure a majority which rejected the draft report on the 2G scam.
