New Delhi, April 2 (IANS) The joint parliamentary committee (JPC) looking into 2G spectrum allocation was functioning in a “scandalous” manner, BJP leader Yashwant Sinha said Tuesday, a day after he wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to urge that former minister A. Raja be allowed to depose before the panel.
“The way in which JPC proceedings are being conducted by its chairman, it is scandalous to say the least,” Sinha said, attacking the parliamentary panel’s chairperson, P.C. Chacko.
Sinha said there had been no meeting of the JPC in two months, and time had been wasted in inquiring into matters from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime.
“For over two months, a meeting of the JPC has not been called; various members, including me, have been demanding, please call a meeting of the JPC,” Sinha said.
“JPC was constituted to look in the 2G scam, it happened in 2008. But the ruling coalition insisted inquiry should be from 1998 and we spent a disproportionately long time looking into issue between 1998 and 2004,” he said.
He also said that not allowing former telecom minister Raja to depose before the JPC was denial of justice.
“Mr. A. Raja has written a letter to the JPC chairman, to the Lok Sabha speaker demanding that he appears in front of the JPC so that he could testify, he is being denied an opportunity,” Sinha said.
“He has cast serious aspersions on the conduct of the prime minister, on the conduct of Finance Minister P. Chidambaram… I think this is denial of natural justice to Raja not to call him to the JPC to answer questions and offer explanations to questions members of JPC may have,” he said.
Members of the BJP had earlier boycotted the JPC, demanding that the prime minister and finance minister be called to depose before it but later gave up their demand.
Raja too had written to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and Chacko that he be allowed to depose before the parliamentary panel.
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