PAC, JPC turf war reaches Speaker

Joint parliamentary committee (JPC) chief PC Chacko and public accounts committee (PAC) chairman PC Joshi took their turf war over the domain of the two probes on the telecom scandal to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Friday. HT reports.

Joint parliamentary committee (JPC) chief PC Chacko and public accounts committee (PAC) chairman PC Joshi took their turf war over the domain of the two probes on the telecom scandal to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Friday.

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At the meeting with the Speaker, Chacko contended that the PAC should confine its inquiry to the CAG report on 2G spectrum allocation.

The PAC, he said, was mandated to look into wasteful expenditure and not into policy issues relating to allocation of spectrum.

Joshi, however, underlined that the PAC cannot turn back from the probe it had started much before the JPC was set up. He had earlier said that he will continue to fulfil its constitutionally empowered duty of probing all matters of telecom that caused a loss to the exchequer.

On his part, Chacko recalled that when the JPC first met on March 24, there was a consensus among its members that the PAC may hold a parallel probe beyond its specific mandate. The panel then decided to approach the Speaker.

After placing their views, Chacko and Joshi have now left it to the Speaker to resolve the issuet. The Speaker, who has the power to adjudicate in such matters, heard both Chacko and Joshi and her decision is awaited.

Chacko had earlier said that he would also flag two other issues — whether the 30 JPC members have any conflict of interest with the telecom issue and whether the presence of former ministers and members involved in formulating the telecom policy constituted conflict of interest.