NEW DELHI: Countering the Opposition's call for removal of P C Chacko as chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) looking into the 2G spectrum issue, Congress members of the panel on Thursday wrote to LokSabha Speaker Meira Kumar seeking the removal of BJP members Jaswant Singh, YashwantSinha and Ravi Shankar Prasad, citing a conflict of interest.
Stating that the three members were "very closely associated with the decision-making process in the government between 1998 and 2004, which have come under scrutiny of the JPC," the letter from the six Congress MPs on the JPC said this "has led to conflict of interest resulting in their vehement opposition to the findings of the committee in the draft report".
Interestingly, the realization that the three BJP MPs on JPC had a conflict of interest has come rather late in the day. The timing of the Congress MPs letter obviously raised questions, given that it immediately followed the Opposition members' letter to the Speaker seeking removal of P C Chacko as JPC chief for being "partisan".
The Congress MPs' letter recalls that Jaswant Singh, as deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, was chairman of the high-level Group on Telecom (GoT) constituted by the government on New Telecom Policy on November 20, 1998, and was re-appointed to head the Group on March 1, 1999, even after he became the external affairs minister. Yashwant Sinha, who was then minister of finance, was appointed as chairman of the Group on Telecom and IT Convergence on November 10, 2000. "Jaswant Singh, as minister of finance, was again appointed as chairman of GoM on telecom matters constituted on September 10, 2003, of which Yashwant Sinha and Ravi Shankar Prasad , as minister of state (independent charge) for Information and Broadcasting, were members.
"In their capacity as chairmen/members of the GoM/GoT/GoT-IT and as Union ministers, these members were instrumental in taking major decisions relating to the telecom sector, that are being investigated by the JPC as its terms of reference are spread over the period from 1998 to 2009. As the Committee is in the process of finalising its report, they (Singh, Sinha and Prasad) have begun to show their restlessness and resistance as their decisions have come under the scanner of the committee," the Congress MPs complained to the Speaker.
"As they were themselves part of the decision making process by either being on the council of ministers or on the panels on telecom, this could constitute conflict of interest with their duty as members of the JPC...as such, it would not be fair to allow them to sit in judgment on their own decisions," they said.
Citing House conduct rules that empower the Speaker to decide on removal of a member where an objection is taken to his/her inclusion in a committee on the ground that he/she has a personal, pecuniary or direct interest of such an intimate character that it may prejudicially affect the outlook and decisions of the committee, the MPs requested Meira Kumar that they be expeditiously removed from the membership of the JPC "in the interest of justice and fairness."
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