2G scam: Chacko submits JPC report to Speaker

Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) chairman P C Chacko on Tuesday submitted his report to Speaker Meira Kumar,giving a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh vis-a-vis the 2G spectrum scam.

“The Prime Minister was misled by the Minister of Communications and Information Technology (A Raja) about the procedure decided to be followed by the Department of Telecommunications in respect of issuance of UAS licences,” the report said. “Further,the assurance given by the Minister of Communications and Information Technology in all his correspondence with the Prime Minister to maintain full transparency in following established rules and procedures of the Department stood belied,” it added.

As many as 12 of the 30 members of the committee,belonging to BJP,BJD,CPM,CPI,DMK and AIADMK,appended dissent notes to the report. Chacko admitted that he had edited the dissent notes,as mandated by Rule 303(5),to ensure that no inappropriate or inaccurate expression found its way in to the document. This had been done to maintain the “credibility” of the report.

The dissenting members felt P Chidambaram,who was the finance minister then,sho-uld have been asked to depose before the JPC. They were critical of the fact that even though Raja had made several offers to depose before the panel,he was not allowed to do so.