PAC to consider PM offer to depose on spectrum, says Joshi

NEW DELHI - BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, who heads parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Monday said his panel would take the “appropriate decision at the appropriate time” on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s offer to appear before it over the spectrum scam.

“On this, committee will take an appropriate decision at the appropriate time,” Joshi told a press conference here, in a sign that he may be thinking differently vis-a-vis the Bharatiya Janata Party which has come out against the PAC probing the spectrum allocation scandal.

Joshi’s comments came after Manmohan Singh reiterated in a letter to the BJP veteran that he was ready to appear before the PAC to answer questions on the raging controversy though no prime minister had deposed to PAC.

The opposition, the Left included, is unrelenting in its demand for a probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) into the 2008 allocation of second generation spectrum at below the market prices that they say caused huge losses to the government.

The scandal led to the resignation last month of communications minister D. Raja. The DMK leader has since been interrogated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). He has denied any wrongdoing.

Joshi said the prime minister had written to his office and provided all the information required by PAC.

“We had got a lot of documents from them (government), and we are analysing them. There are lots of bundles of (documents) which will take a lot of time,” he added.

Earlier in the day, Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai was quizzed by PAC members on the methodology of arriving at the figure of loss to the exchequer due to the 2G spectrum allocation.

“CAG said that performance audit is not just looking at statistics but also if the policies have been implemented properly. The policy is made by the government. CAG does not go into the question of making the policy,” said Joshi.

Rai also explained that the audit body had made different calculations of the loss based on three models. “There was discussion on technical matters of spectrum,” said Joshi.

The BJP has made it clear that PAC is more of an auditor and that it cannot probe the various dimensions of the spectrum allocation, including those related how the spectrum policies were framed, what role the cabinet played in spectrum allocation, and the role of the prime minister.

Only a JPC, the opposition maintains, can play this role, not PAC. The Congress and Manmohan Singh himself have repeatedly rejected the demand to constitute a JPC.

Manmohan Singh wrote to the PAC that he was making the offer to be questioned in view of speculation that he was “unwilling to be questioned by a parliamentary committee.

“I would like to inform you that I am willing to appear before the PAC should the committee choose to seek clarifications from the prime minister though I believe there is no precedent of the prime minister appearing before a PAC,” he wrote.

The spectrum allocation has sharply divided the government and the opposition, which refused to let parliament function during winter session unless its demand for a JPC was conceded.