New Delhi: A divided Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probing the 2G spectrum issue will meet today to finalise its report, sources said yesterday.
Informed sources said the report had laid the blame for the losses to the public exchequer on account of faulty allocation of spectrum and grant of licences on former telecom minister A Raja, clearing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram of any wrongdoing.
Thursday’s meeting will debate the report and adopt a final version, along with any dissent notes.
Sources said there was no precedent of a JPC report being put to vote, but allowing dissent notes was a democratic practice.
The JPC is divided over the culpability of Raja, whose note submitted to the panel has stated that everything he did was in consultation with the prime minister. Raja had sought permission of Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar to depose before the JPC, but was allowed only to submit a note, which has been incorporated into the draft report, sources said.
The opposition is also miffed that contents of the draft report were allegedly leaked to the media last week, even before the report was finalised. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the DMK have given privilege notices against JPC chief P C Chacko to the Lok Sabha speaker.
While the BJP is miffed that the draft report allegedly says the government incurred losses of over Rs400bn during the tenure of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the DMK is upset that its leader and former telecom minister A Raja has been blamed for faulty 2G spectrum allocation.
IANS
