All-party meet fails to resolve impasse
The Opposition on Tuesday increased pressure on the government for a joint parliamentary committee into 2G spectrum allocation issue against the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s observation about the delay on the part of the Prime Minister in taking a decision on a plea for sanction of prosecution of former telecom minister A. Raja .
At an all-party meeting called by the Leader of the Lok Sabha and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee to break the stalemate on this issue in Parliament during the day failed as the Opposition remained firm on its stand on the JPC.
“No solution on JPC,” said Mr Mukherjee after the meeting.
He told them that he would get back to them after taking up the matter with PM Manmohan Singh.
The meeting attended by several leaders including Leaders of the Opposition — Sushma Swaraj in Lok Sabha and Arun Jaitley in Rajya Sabha — could not make headway with the opposition remaining adamant on the JPC demand. The BJP, JD(U), Shiv Sena and SP wanted a JPC and no other opposition party opposed the demand, said RLD chief Ajit Singh, who sought setting up of an Inquiry Commission.
Mr Ajit Singh said the government insisted that the Public Accounts Committee could do a great job in finding out the truth in the matter and the JPC will be out of place in this issue.
The Trinamul Congress suggested a discussion in parliament and said that if majority wanted JPC, it should be constituted. On the other hand, the DMK, whose member Mr A Raja had to quit as telecom minister over the 2G issue, said it would go by the government’s decision in the matter. NCP said JPC would not serve the purpose. “We want the House to run. We do not want disruptions. We are not averse to JPC,” said Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M) as also D. Raja (CPI). Mr Raja and Mr Yechury said that though they were willing to consider any other “credible form” of inquiry, they felt that the PAC would not serve the purpose. They threw the ball in the government’s court on breaking the impasse.
Mr Yechury said that there was no alternative offered by the government and no suggestion made on how to proceed with investigations into the all the three issues.
The CPI-M leader said the PAC inquiry would not be sufficient as it would not be able to go beyond the CAG report.
“JPC would be able to go into reasons and factors, which led to certain decisions, why such decisions were taken and who was responsible. These issues are outside the purview of PAC,” he said.
The Biju Janta Dal favoured constituting a Commission of Inquiry to probe the matter.
NCP leader Praful Patel said while the opposition has its own set of demands, there were other pressing issues, which were being neglected in Parliament due to frequent disturbances.
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