They accused him of having malafide intention to destabilising the government and demanded his resignation.
Soon after the draft report was leaked to a section of media, members of Congress and DMK met and made it clear that they would not allow the adoption of the report in Thursday meeting.
They said that they had got no time to study thoroughly the voluminous report of 280-odd pages and would like to study it properly besides calling more key witnesses like former Telecom Minister A Raja before the committee.
According to leaked report (PAC) has reportedly given a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the 2G spectrum scam, but the Prime Minister’s Office’s role is under scrutiny as it delayed in providing information to Dr Singh.
PAC has reportedly come to the conclusion that the Prime Minister was not kept in the loop on 2G spectrum deal and has recommended that all 2G licenses should be scrapped. The committee has also alleged that telecom minister A Raja presented half truths to the Prime Minister.
“The PM’s desire to keep the PMO at arms length indirectly helped the Telecom Minister to go ahead and execute his arbitrary and dubious designs,” the PAC report states.
Criticising the then finance minister P Chidamabaram’s role in the allocation process of 2G spectrum, the PAC says the finance minister pleaded with the Prime Minister to treat the matter as closed.
After the leak Congress members KS Rao, Saifuddin Soz and Navin Jindal and DMK member T Siva attacked PAC chief for pushing the report for his political agenda.
Alleging that Joshi had wanted to destabilise and defame the cabinet and government, Rao said the draft report seems to have been prepared in a “pre-determined manner with biased mind and malafide intention.
He said that members had no idea that tomorrow’s meeting was to discuss the report and were “shocked” to learn about it through the media.
“We did not know Joshi was in hurry to present report by April 30,” Rao said. Apprehending that Joshi might table the report in Parliament without views of members of ruling party, he demanded resignation of Joshi as head of PAC.
Contending that Joshi would throughout the meetings force the witnesses to toe a particular line and even “put words” in their mouth, Rao said, “We all are for unanimous report.