Govt's defence at JPC: Note is not official

The UPA government has prepared its defense before the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), which wants to know why the 2G inter-ministerial note involving home minister P Chidambaram's role, was not given to the panel.

The UPA government has prepared its defense before the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), which wants to know why the 2G inter-ministerial note involving home minister P Chidambaram's role, was not given to the panel.

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The UPA is likely to cite that the note is just a background paper prepared by various ministries, and not an official communication on the 2G issue. It may also point out that the document was never sent to court or used for official purposes.

The government's crisis managers have also decided that the finance secretary, who has been summoned by the JPC on 12 October to explain why the note was not divulged, will maintain that all official communications and documents have already been submitted to the JPC, and nothing has been hidden from the parliamentary panel.

The CBI, which is probing the 2G issue under the supervision of the Supreme Court, has also submitted that there is nothing new in the document.

JPC chairman PC Chacko held a long meeting with Lok Sabha leader, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday evening. Parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and his deputy Rajiv Shukla also met Mukherjee to discuss the JPC issue.

In the last meeting of the JPC, the opposition led by CPM's Sitaram Yechury forced stalling of the scheduled agenda over the March 2011 note on the 2G issue. Under pressure from the opposition, Chacko decided to summon the finance secretary.

The government maintains that the note was the result of an inter-departmental effort to mount a common defence before various authorities.