JPC row: Parliament set to be adjourned sine die

The 2010 winter session is set to go down in the history of the Parliament as one and the first one which did not deliberate even a minute. It is likely to be adjourned sine die.

The government is all set to shut Parliament on Thursday, dumping the pre-fixed winter session schedule till December 13, instead of yielding to the Opposition adamant for a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the 2G spectrum scam and other cases of corruption.

Parliament remained jammed and adjourned for the 14th day running on Wednesday,  though the government swung into action to get the financial business through even amid pandemonium to prepare for adjourning sine die.

An unrelenting main opposition Bhartiya Janata Party asked all opposition parties to join hands to take its JPC "war" to streets to mobilise the people to revolt against the government for the cover-up of the massive corruption.

A day after Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar failed to break the logjam, the government on Wednesday got passed the financial business of Pranab Mukherjee amid din before adjourning for the day and rushed it to the Rajya Sabha for its nod on Thursday.

It includes the supplementary budget and 2008-09 excess grants demands and related appropriation bills.

Mamata Bannerjee's supplementary railway budget is expected to be passed in a similar fashion in the Lok Sabha on Thursday before ending the session to meet again in February for the budget session.

A year-end group photograph of all Lok Sabha members will precede at 9.30 am.

Also introduced in the Lok Sabha amid din was the judicial standards and accountability bill that seeks to lay down judicial standards and establish a mechanism to probe charges against the Supreme Court and high court judges and provide for their declaration of assets and liabilities.

The Congress issued a whip to the party MPs to remain present in both the Houses to push through the financial business before calling the day, after its trouble-shooter Pranab Mukherjee threw up hands in resolving the impasse.

Both the Houses were adjourned first till noon and then for the day as the Opposition continued to stall the business, storming into well and raising slogans for JPC.

There was a momentary peace in the Lok Sabha at 11 am when the Speaker made obituary references on death of former Union minister and former Haryana governor Mahabir Prasad on Monday and again at noon when the speaker spoke on World AIDS Day and announced group photo of MPs on Thursday.

It was, however, noise and din immediately thereafter. Unlike in the past, the Congress and other ruling members did not join with chorus to sack BJP's Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa.

The Rajya Sabha saw similar scenes, forcing chairman Hamid Ansari to suspend question hour and later the House was adjourned for the day.

Wednesday's adjournment meets the past longest adjournment of 14 days in 2001 before the then National Democratic Alliance government conceded a JPC probe into the stock exchange scam involving broker Ketan Parekh.

The Lok Sabha had come to a standstill also in 2003 but only for five days before a JPC headed by Sharad Pawar was conceded by the then NDA government on pesticide residues found in soft drinks and beverages.

With the Parliament session set to shut down, it will not break the records of the two other logjams yielding JPC probes -- 19 days in 1987 on Bofors kick-backs and 17 days on Harshad Mehta scam.

The Lok Sabha has not functioned for a single day during the session except on the opening day on November 9 when it passed two bills on changing name of Orissa as Odisha and rephrasing its state language Oriya.

The Rajya Sabha was adjourned on the opening day on account of the death of a sitting member and as such the government business remained frozen on the daily agenda without any progress for the past three weeks.