The PAC on Friday witnessed some of its own members challenging its work. In fact an open war broke out between Congress and DMK members on the one hand and the BJP members on the other.
As a result of the severe internal differences within the PAC, questioning of two top officials of the PMO – Principal Secretary to Prime Minister T K Nair and Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar – scheduled for Saturday, has been postponed. BJP members alleged that the Congress members deliberately upped their ante to prevent questioning of the top PMO officials by the PAC headed by senior BJP leader Murali Manohar Joshi.
In view of serious differences among the PAC members, the three top officials who were called for questioning today were asked to wait for hours together. Law Secretary D R Meena was questioned by PAC for only five minutes. CBI director A P Singh was asked to wait for four hours and Attorney general Gulam Vahanawati waited for three hours and eventually neither of them was questioned.
Congress and DMK members differed with the BJP and others members in the PAC and severely attacked Murali Manohar Joshi for his style of functioning and alleged that Joshi was enforcing his personal agenda and making the PAC meetings a “media show”, sources said. For more than four hours the PAC members literally wrangled about their differences. Chairman Joshi argued that he has powers to call anybody and the PAC has the mandate to go beyond the CAG report.
There were three to four issues on which the Congress and DMK members led by K S Rao and Undavalli Arun Kumar focussed and tried to corner Joshi. The primary question was when the entire 2G spectrum allocation issue is sub judice, why should people who are part of the proceedings in the trial are being summoned by the PAC. Further, they questioned when there is a JPC to probe 2G scam, why PAC is duplicating the work. Arun Kumar questioned what kind of PAC Chairman it is, when he is not able to summon former Telecom Minister A Raja before the committee for questioning. The Congress and DMK members wanted that the PAC should wind up its proceedings as the JPC is already constituted and about to begin its task.
It is known that for some time, there is virtual a cold war atmosphere prevailing between Murali Manohar Joshi and the new JPC chairman P C Chacko as both complained to Speaker Meira Kumar on the confusion and the jurisdiction on the 2G spectrum probe. In fact, Chacko publicly told the PAC to withdraw suo moto from the 2G spectrum probe.
The 22- member PAC has seven members of Congress, four of BJP, two each from DMK and AIADMK and one each from various other parties.