Chacko to head parliamentary panel to probe 2G scam
New Delhi: Congress old-timer P.C. Chacko, a four-time Lok Sabha MP, was on Friday appointed as the head of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) that will probe the alleged finanical irregularities in the allocation of 2G spectrum - billed as one of the biggest scams in India.
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar appointed the 65-year old Kerala politician, who represents Thrissur constituency in the house, as the head of the 30-member panel, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal told reporters.
The government, giving in to the opposition's relentless demand for a JPC, last week formed the multiparty panel to probe alleged irregularities in 2G spectrum allocation and to also look into the telecom policy from 1998 to 2009. This covers the governments of both the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
Of the 30 members, including the chairman, 20 are from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha.
The JPC, the fifth so far, was formed to end a parliament deadlock between the government and the opposition disrupting the winter session citing government auditors' report that the second generation spectrum was sold by former IT and communication minister A. Raja at throwaway prices to telecom firms causing a loss of Rs.1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer.
The panel will "examine policy prescriptions and their interpretation thereafter by successive governments, including decisions of the union cabinet and the consequences thereof, in the allocation and pricing of telecom licences and spectrum from 1998 to 2009", Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said.
The Congress has eight Lok Sabha MPs in the panel and the BJP six. The Congress members include Chacko, Manish Tewari, Jai Prakash Agarwal and V. Kishore Chandra Deo.
From the BJP, the panel members include former ministers Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha.
Among the Rajya Sabha's nominees on the JPC are P.J. Kurien, Jayanthi Natarajan and Praveen Rashtrapal from the Congress; S.S. Ahluwalia and Ravi Shankar Prasad of the BJP; and Tiruchi Siva from UPA ally DMK, to which Raja belongs.
Others from the upper house on the panel are Yogendra P. Trivedi (NCP), Ramchandra Prasad Singh (JD-U), Satish Chandra Misra (BSP) and Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M).
Raja, who was forced to quit in November in the wake of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report that the specturm allocation had caused the exchequer a notional loss of Rs.1.76 crore, is in Tihar jail.
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