Joshi sends report to Speaker,Congress says he has no right

My expectation is that the Speaker would accept it and place in Parliament, Joshi told a crowded press conference later. The Speakers view is final. He disclosed that he had appended some material to the report to buttress the rationale for drawing conclusions in the report.

In Chandigarh,Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said that Joshi had no right to give a report to the Speaker after it had been rejected by a majority of members of the PAC. Who has given him the right to do so? he asked,adding that Joshis action amounted to an insult to democratic institutions. Bansal reiterated that the place of this report is in the dustbin.

Joshi retorted by arguing: Today,they are saying,throw the PAC report in to the dustbin. Tomorrow,they would say,throw the CAG report into the dustbin and then throw the Supreme Court decisions into the dustbin.

Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said,The Speaker has to opine whether it is a report or not.

Sources in the Congress said the party would now oppose Joshis re-nomination as PAC chairman. However,any such move was sure to fall through,the post being conventionally earmarked for a nominee of the main opposition party. And the BJP has made it known that it wanted Joshi to continue.

BJP circles suggested that the party may retaliate against Congress attacks on Joshi and the PAC by boycotting all parliamentary committees. However,Joshi,in reply to a question,said,I have no knowledge of any such decision by the party. Sources said senior party leaders L K Advani,Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley were in favour restraint and adherence to parliamentary norms.

Though Joshi had lobbed the ball in the court of the Speaker and the Congress swore by the same line,the Speaker,it is believed,is unlikely to take a partisan view,notwithstanding the fact that she belonged to the Congress party. Earlier,she had refused to take sides in the PAC-versus-JPC row too.

Regarding the rejection of the report by a majority of members 11 out of 21 at the last meeting of the committee,Joshi said it was unconstitutional. He agreed that several members had demanded a division,but added that some others had opposed it too. The number is not important,the process is, he stressed. I dont have to go by a majority,I have to go by rules and I had given my ruling.

He said as per the rules,the members should have considered the report and if they so wished,they could have suggested amendments. They cannot reject the report, he said.

Suggesting that the Congress discomfort stemmed from the adverse findings about the Prime Minister and PMO,he said nobody seemed to have any problem till he summoned top functionaries like the Cabinet Secretary,Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister and Attorney-General of India.

He denied having given a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. I laid fact before people that the Prime Minister remained a mute spectator to the scam, he said.

When asked why had the PAC not called the main accused,A Raja,in connection with the probe,Joshi first said he could not have been called because it was a long drawn procedure.