A failure of accountability
Veteran BJP leader and public accounts committee chairperson Murli Manohar Joshi, recently handed his panel’s draft report on the 2G spectrum issue to the office of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and left it to her to adjudicate its fate. If
the Speaker accepts the report as discussed and adoptedby the 21-member panel, it will be tabled in Parliament in the next session. And if she does not accepts the report, it will die a natural death, unless the next panel decides to revive the 2G probe or take off from
where its predecessor had stopped. It needs to be underscored that the term of the present PAC headed by Murli Manhohar Joshi, expired on April, 30 and the new panel will start the proceedings afresh from May, 1, 2011.
What has caused a stir in the PAC on 2G Report
The PAC in its report on 2G scam has strongly indicted the former Telecom Minister, Mr. A. Raja and it also came down with heavy hands on the PMO and the Cabinet Secretariat for the inactive role they played in spectrum allocation which led to some unfortunate omissions. The stir was caused even before the chairman of the PAC submitted the report to the speaker for the consideration of the house. At the pre-submission meet of the PAC, 11 membersbelonging to Congress, DMK and one each from SP and BSP voted against adoption of the report, and they even elected Saifuddin Soz, a Congress member from Rajya Sabha as the chairperson of the meet, clearly violating the norms of a democratic parliamentary institution and thus making mockery of the idealism of founding fathers of our constitutional setup.
Breach of Rules of Procedures
by our Politicians at the PAC
Foremost, the rules of procedure did not recognise a division of votes in the PAC. If members dissent against certain parts of a report, they are free to move amendments. When any report is being finalized by the PAC, the Chairman the draft is circulated among members and they are given ample of time to give their opinions on the report. After this the chairman and the members discuss the report paragraph by paragraph and every member is entitled to expresses amendments. Thus after achieving the consensus only the report is signed by the chairman and submitted to the presiding officer of the Lok Sabha. There is thus, no room for dissenting voices in the PAC report. This is for the first time the PAC report has become a shame on our parliamentary democratic setup. Secondly, the election of Saifuddin Soz, by 11 members of the committee, acting on their own will is surely a murder of the democracy and can never be labelled as a valid or legal action. The PAC by tradition has been headed by a member of the opposition and it is the speaker who has the power to nominatethe chairman from amongst the members and has to be from Lok Sabha. Saifuddin Soz fails this litmus test clearly.
A failure of accountability and political acumen: The acrimonious dispute among the member of the PAC has undermined the credibility of the political class, Parliament and its institutions. Moreover, the reports’ regarding the pre- mature leakage of the report has also put a strain on the credibility of our Cabinet Secretariat and the PMO. We feel that public airing of the differences within PAC has further damaged the image of Indian democracy and its institutions, especially at a time when there is a question on the on the transparency of the government and the political class in the backdrop of long season of allegations of corruption against them. Political brinkmanship reached its logical conclusion when PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi walked out of the committee’s meeting, and a UPA-led combine subsequently rejected (11:10) his draft version as the final report on the 2G telecom scam. It would not have caused as much concern had it indeed been a vote, preceded by normal democratic norms. Instead, the PAC has set a dubious precedent that is bound to have repercussions, especially on the UPA’s ability to push through much-needed legislative changes to revive political and economic reforms.
As differences between members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have been shown to the citizen of the nation with vitriolic vengeance, political discourse in the country has hit a new nadir. That the ruckus has been over a yet-to-be-finalized report makes it worse. In the process, the opposition has shown its opportunism; and the Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-both constituents of the United Progressive Alliance government- their disregard for democratic values.
A Confused Government and A Confused Opposition: It needs to mention here that hitherto, the UPA had insisted that the PAC was the appropriate forum to probe the 2G scam. Now when the PAC has raised questions regarding the government’s role in spectrum allocation, and now the government is questioning the credibility of PAC itself. Opposition also has not shown any different attitude towards the nation time and resources. It wasted the entire winter session of the Parliament, on the demand that the PAC is not a sufficient body and a JPC probe was needed in the 2G scam. Now it has started backing the PAC with full force. If the PAC report can highlight partisan politics to such dirty levels, we can imagine the level of hysteria the JPC probe would cause.
PAC: A lost opportunity: But We Still Need PACs: -Under our constitutional arrangement all reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) are referred to the PAC, a statutory body. This makes the PAC a crucial democratic institution that ensures Parliamentary oversight of government policy action. In the recent case, the CAG’s highly contentious findings on the allocation of 2G spectrum, especially its indictment of the UPA, provided fresh political ammunition to the opposition. To mitigate political damage, the ruling Congress decided to checkmate proceedings. This could not have been too prudent-the UPA’s credibility is already in the doldrums after a series of alleged corruption scandals, and the public cannot be faulted if they believe the government was once again eager to avoid scrutiny. What both the opposition and the government have overlooked is the damage to polity and their own credibility. The PAC’s failure will only retard governance further. Worse, they have missed an opportunity to objectively delve into the problem. The proper way would have been to thoroughly examine the CAG’s methodology and its conclusion that the decision to preclude an auction of telecom licenses caused losses to the exchequer. The PAC report has made some valid points, whichneed to be discussed in a democratic way, away from party politics and in the larger interest of the citizens. The PAC in its report has also praised the role of whistle blowers and the media, which unravelled irregularities in 2G spectrum allocation. If we link the current fiasco with the spontaneous support for Anna Hazare’s campaign against corruption, it is clearly evident that the country is thirsting for action. India’s Parliamentarians have once again failed the people.
