Congress members in the Lok Sabha on Friday took strong exception to the Joint Parliamentary Committee, which probed the stock scam and Unit Trust of India fiasco, giving a clean chit to former finance minister and now External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha.
Seeking suspension of Question Hour to discuss the JPC's report, Mani Shankar Aiyer, a member of the committee, said it was shocking that the report was tabled without the opinions of all members of the JPC.
Aiyer said Sinha's argument that the UTI chairman kept him in the dark was no excuse. He also accused the former finance minister of misleading the House on the Calcutta Stock Exchange payment crisis and the UTI fiasco.
Speaker Manohar Joshi, however, rejected Congress chief whip Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi's request to suspend Question Hour to discuss the issue.
Taking strong objection to the Congress demand for suspension of Question Hour and the attack on Sinha, Bharatiya Janata Party chief whip V K Malhotra said, "It is immoral and illegal on the part of the Congress to raise the issue as there was no dissenting note in the JPC's report. This kind of demand is against parliamentary democracy."