JPC draft report on 2G scam clears PM, Chidambaram
28 Sep 2013
The Congress Party heading the United Progressive Alliance government at the centre managed to have the final say in a joint parliamentary committee on the 2G spectrum scandal with the panel headed by congressman P C Chacko on Friday approving a draft report giving clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and finance minister P Chidambaram.
The draft report, passed with a 16-11 vote, instead, accused the then telecom minister A Raja of ''misleading'' the prime minister and ''belying'' the assurances given to him.
The draft report also accused Raja of forging the press note of 7 January 2008 after it was seen by the then Solicitor-General GE Vahanvati.
''The committee wishes to point out that the procedure regarding the First-Come-First-Served (FCFS) criteria was a ''misrepresentation of facts and in tactic deviation from the existing procedure,'' it says.
The draft JPC report also rubbished the loss figure of Rs1,76,000 crore projected by CAG, saying it was ''ill-conceived''.
The Congress managed to get the JPC report passed with allies outside the coalition, including two from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and one from the Samajwadi Party (SP), voting with 14 others within the UPA in favour of the report.
Five BJP members and one each from the DMK, AIADMK, TMC, BJD, CPI and CPI (M) voted against the report.
Twenty-seven of the 30-member JPC, including 11 from the Congress, one from the NCP, two from the BSP, one from the SP and nominated member Ashok Ganguly, were present at the voting while three members, including one from the BJP, were absent.
Commenting on the approval of the draft report, which was circulated among members in April, BJP leader and member of the JPC Yashwant Sinha said the report is based on ''wrong facts, falsehood and prejudicial''
findings and was ''unashamedly'' passed with the help of a contrived majority.
Despite 11 members voting against the report, there was no even a single note of dissent to the JPC report.
JPC chairman PC Chacko, later told media persons after the committee meeting that those who voted against the draft report would be given 15 days to file their dissent note.
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