Joshis PAC report should be rejected outright: Bansal

There is no report in the eyes of law because the draft was never adopted by the committee

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A day after PAC chairperson Murli Manohar Joshi charged the UPA with attempts to convert the audit panel into a captive committee,Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal on Wednesday lashed out at him contending that the draft report on 2G spectrum sale he had submitted to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar should be outrightly rejected as it is based on dishonest representation and interpretation of facts.

Escalating the war of words further,Bansal told The Indian Express that the senior BJP parliamentarian had lowered the dignity of the PAC by brazenly giving interviews in the media and misleading the public over his communication to the Speaker.

There is no report in the eyes of law because the draft was never adopted by the committee. So where is the question of Joshi dictating to the Speaker on this matter. It is unfortunate that he is continuously harping on the subject and insisting that some draft circulated by him is the actual report of the PAC. Our case is clear,majority of the members had rejected the draft, Bansal said.

He went on further to add that even going by Joshis version of the sequence of events,the draft report had not been considered by the committee as he had left the meeting midway when it last met.

Joshi,who was last week re-elected as PAC head,had said in Lucknow on Tuesday that the Congress was trying to block the probe into issues relating to corruption in the 2G spectrum scam and the attempt to undermine the PAC functioning was an insult to parliamentary democracy.

Kanimozhi,Sharath seek fresh date from ED

DMK MP Kanimozhi and Kalaignar TV managing director Sharath Kumar on Wednesday requested the Enforcement Directorate to give them another date instead of May 13 in connection with the summons sent to them in the 2G spectrum scam.

According to ED officials,the two met senior officers of the directorate and expressed their inability to appear on May 13 when the election results will be announced in Tamil Nadu.

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The DMK MP told the ED that they have to appear before the I-T authorities in Chennai on Thursday and it would not be possible for her and Kumar to reply to the summons immediately after that and requested them to provide another date. Officials said they had given a breather of a week to both Kanimozhi and Kumar,but a decision on the dates would be taken on May 14. ENS