JPC vs PAC

Given that Congress veterans had summoned all their parliamentary experience to argue against the need for a joint parliamentary committee JPC to inquire into this countrys telecom policy,P.C. Chackos anger is intriguing. Chacko is chairperson of the JPC ultimately constituted to study telecom policy between 1998 and 2009,taking within its scope the allocation of 2G spectrum on A. Rajas watch. He says he would like the Public Accounts Committee PAC to confine its role in the matter to a scrutiny of the comptroller and auditor generals report on allocation of the 2G spectrum,and leave issues of telecom policy to the JPC. PAC Chairperson M.M. Joshi,for his part,has asked Chacko to put his objections in writing,and Chacko says he may do just that.

The PAC is constituted every year and is a primary expression of the legislatures check on the executive. It is mandated with scrutinising the governments expenditure and the CAGs report and usually,as Chacko points out,the committee refrains from matters of policy-making,restricting itself to noting losses that may have accrued on account of a particular policy. However,what lends much speculation to Chackos exertions to remind the PAC is the politics that preceded the constitution of the JPC. The Congress had rebutted the oppositions demand for a JPC by arguing that in fact the PAC was capable of addressing most issues. While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had expressed his readiness to appear before the PAC,further raising the committees profile,Joshi had invited the irritation of his BJP colleagues by his enthusiasm to get cracking on telecom issues within the PAC and in their estimation reducing the need for a JPC.

So,why is Chacko now keen to limit the PACs role? Behavioural economists speak of the endowment effect a person places a higher value on what he already owns. So now that the JPC leadership is his,hed be more zealous in guarding its turf than if the committee had never been constituted. More pragmatically,it may be an attempt to retain political control on the direction of the investigations into the 2G swindle. Either way,in this JPC vs PAC tension,parliamentary committees could be reorienting themselves to changed circumstances.