Thaindian News

New Delhi, May 1 (IANS) Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal Sunday accused Public Accounts Committee chairman Murli Manohar Joshi of stifling the view of the majority to malign the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and said the BJP leader had brought grave disrepute to the position by sharing with the media “graphic details” of each sitting.

In a hard-hitting statement that came on a day Joshi was renominated PAC chief by Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, Bansal said the BJP leader had chosen not to go for a vote on the draft PAC report on the 2G spectrum controversy in the April 28 meeting when all members were present and a majority of them had explicitly demanded voting.

Instead of insisting on terming the product of “predetermined political agenda” as the report of PAC, Joshi and the BJP should do some honest self-introspection and make amends for inflicting a lacerating wound on the country’s democracy, he said.

Bansal said at his press conference Saturday, Joshi had asserted that the rejection of his draft report by a majority of members was unconstitutional where as the process prescribed by the rules gives importance to the numbers.

In his anxiety to hurriedly get the PAC stamp of approval on his draft report, “prepared by ignoring or twisting facts, Dr. Joshi has chosen to mislead the public,” he said.

Eleven members of the 21-member PAC from the Congress, DMK, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party had rejected the draft report April 28 after Joshi adjourned the PAC meeting.

Bansal said Rule 261 of the rules of Procedures and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha that pertains to parliamentary committees states that: “All questions at any sitting of a committee shall be determined by a majority of votes of the members present and voting.”

“At his press conference, Dr. Joshi asserted that the process was important, and the numbers were not, whereas the truth is that the process prescribed by the rules gives importance to numbers in no uncertain terms… Going by Dr. Joshi’s queer theory, the entire democratic system would crumble with a minority in Parliament insisting on treating their views as the decision of the parliament,” he said.

He said the “fond indulgence with which Dr. Joshi shared the graphic details of each sitting with the media has shattered the spirit of Rule 266 which mandates that ‘the sittings of a Committee shall be held in private’. It has also brought grave disrepute to the august chair of PAC. This breach of established norms continued till the end with the author of the draft report choosing to present it to the media first, and only later to the members of the committee”.

Bansal said Joshi and the BJP leadership have chosen to stifle the view of the majority in their endeavour to malign and vilify the UPA government on unsubstantiated personal views.

“Unfortunately, the agenda of public discourse today is sought to be hijacked by self-anointed champions of democracy, albeit through dubious means,” he said.