In 2G turf war,Chacko,Joshi draw the line

Chacko to go to Meira,Joshi says mandate extends beyond CAG reports.

The first meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee JPC looking into the 2G spectrum scam on Thursday decided to refer to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar the issue of whether the presence of some former Union ministers in the committee,who were part of the decision-making process in previous governments,constituted a conflict of interest.

JPC chairperson P C Chacko told reporters that he planned to meet the Lok Sabha Speaker in the next couple of days on the issue. As many as seven former Central ministers Jaswant Singh,Yashwant Sinha,Sharad Yadav,T R Baalu,Ravi Shanker Prasad,M Thambidurai and Harin Pathak are on the committee and were involved in the decision-making process in previous governments. Chacko asserted that he had received letters from several members denying any conflict of interest,including one from Congress MP Manish Tiwari who had represented some of the telecom companies as a lawyer from 2001 to 2005.

Addressing his first press conference,Chacko also adopted a non-confrontationist posture over apparent differences with the Public Accounts Committee,headed by BJP member Murli Manohar Joshi,over the scope of probe by both panels. The PAC,a constitutionally mandated body that scrutinises finances of government departments through reports of the CAG,is also looking into the 2G spectrum issue. In fact,Joshi himself held a press conference on Thursday to underscore that the PAC would continue its work and insisted that overlapping of functions was not a matter of concern. He added that the PACs constitutional mandate extended to areas other than CAG reports.

Chacko,however,maintained that there was no clash of interest with the PAC but added that a parallel probe by two parliamentary committees should be avoided. He said he would request the Speaker to convene a meeting with the PAC chairperson and resolve the matter amicably.

Chacko referred to a book,Practice and Procedure of Parliament,by M N Kaul and S L Shakder to point out that the PAC should limit itself to look into extravagance in the implementation of government policy but not the policy itself. He pointed out that it was the JPC that had been constituted to look into the issue of policy in telecom sector as per the terms of reference.

Joshi,however,read out the terms of reference of the PAC and said the committee had to satisfy that the moneys shown in the accounts as having been disbursed were legally available for,and applicable to,the service or purpose to which they have been applied or charged and indicated that this meant the PAC could look into policy issues as well. I PAC am a perpetual body. PAC will be there whether JPC is there or not, he added.