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Govt will extend Parliament session to July 30 to table Jain report and ATR

Amberish K Diwanji in New Delhi

The government will place the Jain Commission report, along with the Action Taken Report, in both Houses of Parliament on July 30 by extending the current Budget session.

This has been done to enable Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to be present in the House when ''such an important report is being placed.''

Announcing this, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Madan Lal Khurana told newspersons that a decision will be taken on Monday as to when the report will be discussed in Parliament.

The decision to place the report along with the ATR was taken after consultations with the Opposition, he said. One view was that the House be extended for few more days so that continuity was there. But some wanted it to be taken up on August 13 and 14 when Parliament meets for a special session in connection with the golden jubilee celebrations of India's independence.

The prime minister is leaving for Colombo for the SAARC summit on Tuesday.

The Cabinet had, at its meeting last night, set up a four-member ministerial group headed by Home Minister L K Advani to study the ATR further before it was placed in Parliament. Khurana hoped the committee will complete its work by then.

The government had initially declared it would table the ATR and final report in the Lok Sabha on Monday. The Jain Commission investigated the conspiracy behind the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, based in north Sri Lanka.

The government promised to table the ATR of the interim report along with the final report in this session of Parliament, which is scheduled to end on July 29. Incidentally, Vajapayee is scheduled to be in Colombo from July 29 to 31 to attend the SAARC summit.

Given the delicate diplomatic situation in South Asia following the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, New Delhi would not be inclined to let the situation sour. The interim report had named the queen of Nepal as being part of the conspiracy, causing many red faces in the Government of India.

The Congress, for its part, has adopted a wait and watch approach to the government deciding to form a committee to look into the ATR. The committee, comprising Bharatiya Janata Party heavyweights -- L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Ananth Kumar, and Sushma Swaraj, all Cabinet ministers -- will examine the ATR and the Jain Commission's final report in depth and submit its recommendations to the Cabinet.

With the final report running into 10 volumes, Congress members are still to go through the report thoroughly. A party spokesperson said the Congress would insist that the ATR and final report be tabled in the current session of Parliament itself. The Congress is working on its agenda to ensure that the ATR and final report is tabled by the government in the present session.

The Jain Commission interim report had led to the fall of the United Front government when stubborn Congress members had continuously stalled the proceedings of the Lok Sabha. The members demanded that the UF dismiss the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam from the coalition government. However, the UF, which headed a government on the Congress's outside support, refused to heed the threat and the Congress withdrew support.

This time round, Congress circles seem chary of taking too hard a line and pushing the government into a corner. Arjun Singh, considered by many as the person who had forced the Congress to take a hard line on the interim report, insisted he would not speculate on the reasons for the BJP forming the committee. "The BJP government has a right to form a committee to look into the ATR and final report," he said.

He added that the Congress would decide on its next step if the BJP refused to table the ATR and final report in the current session, but remained hopeful that the government would keep its promise.

The BJP has the least to lose in the controversy over the ATR and final report. The interim report had criticised the lax security provided to Rajiv Gandhi during the V P Singh and Chandra Shekhar regimes, and alleged a nexus between the DMK and the LTTE.

The risk for the BJP, however, lies in its alliance partner, the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam insisting that the BJP use the Jain report to sack the DMK government in Tamil Nadu.

Additional reportage: UNI

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