PAC report: Bansal trains guns on Joshi

A day after PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi sent the panels report on the 2G spectrum allocation scam to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar,Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal cited the rulebook to point a finger at his working.

A day after Public Accounts Committee PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi sent the panels report on the 2G spectrum allocation scam to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar,Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal cited the rulebook to point a finger at his working.

Decision by voting is inherent to democratic functioning of institutions, Bansal said in a statement and pointed out that Joshi opted for voting on April 15,when NDA members were in majority.

Bansal said Joshi chose not to do so on April 28,when all the members of PAC were present and a majority of them had explicitly demanded voting on the draft report. The minister said Rule 261 of Rules of Procedures and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha says: All questions at any sitting of a committee shall be determined by a majority of votes of the members present and voting.

According to Rule 262: In case of an equality of votes on any matter,the chairman or the person acting as such,shall have a second or casting vote.

The minister said,Going by Joshis queer theory,the entire democratic system would crumble with a minority in Parliament insisting on treating their views as the decision of Parliament.

Criticising Joshi for sharing graphic details of each sitting with the media,Bansal said this had shattered the spirit of Rule 266 which mandates that the sittings of a committee shall be held in private.

He charged Joshi with attempting to stifle the view of the majority in his endeavour to malign and vilify the UPA government on the basis of unsubstantiated personal views. He said it was time Joshi and the BJP leadership undertook introspection and made amends for inflicting a lacerating wound on Indian democracy.

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On the other hand,BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy alleged that three senior Union ministers P Chidambaram,Kapil Sibal and Bansal were sending slips to UPA representatives when the PAC meeting was underway on April 28. All three ministers,besides Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs V Narayansamy,were present in Parliament House,Rudy said. Never in the history of parliamentary democracy have we seen that senior ministers pass slips to members of committees, Rudy said. They should be ashamed of what they did.