PAC report has to be accepted by Speaker: Joshi

Unfazed by the "rejection" of the draft Public Accounts Committee report by a "majority", Bharatiya Janata Party leader Murli  Manohar Joshi on Wednesday said that the Lok Sabha Speaker has no option but to accept the  report on the 2G scam presented by him.

"There is no other possibility and the Speaker should not reject it," he told mediapersons on the raging controversy surrounding the draft report he submitted last week.      

He was replying to a question about what are the options before Speaker Meira Kumar to whom he has submitted the draft report that was sharply critical of the Prime Minister's Office, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the then Finance minister P Chidambaram.

Joshi rejected criticism that he was partisan in the compilation of the report ignoring the views of members belonging to Congress and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and that the report was outsourced.         

"These are serious charges. Anybody can charge anything if it doesn't suit them," he said. Replying to queries about the Congress claim that the draft report does not exist because the "majority has rejected", he said, "This is absurd."

"In PAC there is no vote. There is no concept of voting in the committee and there is no dissent. Only paras  are adopted and suggestions are included. In fact, some suggestions have been incorporated," he said, citing the  example of acceptance of amendments given by members including Yashwant Sinha and N K Singh.

He said acceptance of the report by the speaker was the only option available to her. Joshi on Wednesday refuted allegations about the authenticity  of the report submitted by him to the Speaker and insisted the document was "vetted" by the Comptroller and Auditor General and had incorporated all amendments before being handed over.

"The report was vetted by the CAG after the April 28 meeting. All the amendments suggested and passed by the PAC were incorporated in the report. Even some of the mistakes in the report, which were pointed out by members, were corrected before submission," he said.

Joshi maintained the PAC had gone through the established procedure before submitting the report to the Speaker on April 30, the last working day of the outgoing PAC. This included the CAG's nod to the report.

 BJP member Yashwant Sinha had suggested some amendments to make the role of then Finance Minister P Chidambaram more clear and hold him accountable.

Some amendments suggested by N K Singh (Janata Dal-United) during the controversial April 28 meeting. Sinha had asked for correction in the draft report which stated that Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekar, Principal Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office T K A Nair and Attorney General G Vahanvati had deposed before the PAC when they had only presented their answers in writing.

All these changes were incorporated in the report which has been submitted to Kumar. Asked if the report had been in the making for a long time as alleged by the Congress members, Joshi said "this is the norm".

"There are so many meetings of the PAC. The committee goes through so many documents. A report cannot be drafted in the air," he said. However, Joshi said Congress allegations were baseless as the Hindi version of the report carried the correct version.

Joshi, who was appointed as Chairperson of the next PAC too on May 1, refuted charges made by United Progressive Alliance ministers P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Pawan Bansal about the report.

In reply to a question on Chidambaram's contention that even a person of below average intelligence would have followed what he said in his letter to the Prime Minister, Joshi said he should first read the report.

"What he wanted to say could have easily been pointed out through one of the Congress members during the PAC meeting. Moreoever, Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla and Reserve Bank of India Governor P Subbarao have accepted what is said in the PAC report. The note is there. Any member could have pointed this out," Joshi said.