COMMENT
WHY JPC is a MUST
The other day, while inaugurating the CNN.IBN Indian of the year award function, the Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee bemoaned the loss of entire winter session of parliament due to the intransigency of opposition parties (read BJP), by their unrelenting demand for Joint Parliamentary Committee to go into 2G Spectrum Scam. Yes, according to the media, the nation, on the face of it, has lost some Rs. 1.74 lakh crores. Opposition consists of BJP and other dozen political parties. Entire opposition is demanding the formation of JPC. Of course, how much JPC can unravel is a moot point. But it’s a legitimate demand of the opposition. There is absolutely no valid reason to reject such a demand. Congress party spokesmen have time and again labouriously tried to argue that there is no need for JPC, and all that JPC would do can be done by Public Accounts Committee. Surely opposition members are aware that both JPC and PAC are not the same. PAC has its own limits and terms of reference, which restricts the freedom enjoyed by the Joint Parliamentary Committee. As ‘The Hindu’ puts it “The PAC can do its work and Parliament can also conduct an open debate. But these cannot be a substitute for comprehensive enquiry by an empowered JPC.”
Jaswanth Singh, an opposition M.P. asked who should break the ‘logjam’ in the parliament if not the prime minister. But our Prime Minister speaks more to the press while on foreign tours rather than to Indian media. On the 11th Dec. last, during his flight from Brussels to Berlin Dr Singh told journalists that he was worried about the future of the parliamentary system in the wake of the complete washout of the winter session and hoped the opposition would see reason.
This is one of the most unfortunate streak of our most educated, economist, no-nonsense prime minister with impeccable integrity. No other No:1 executive of a nation has ever criticised his political opposition parties in the country while on a foreign tour like Dr Singh, which he has done several times on foreign soil. This one aspect is the absolute ‘thumbs down’ for Dr Manmohan Singh, in his otherwise clean image. Of course, his non-assertive style of functioning has lent itself to varieties of interpretations as Prime Minister inside and outside the country.
Coming to J.P.C., the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, even castigated BJP saying ‘BJP should apologise to the nation’ for the loss of time and money on account of 22 days Loksabha logjam. This is pure joke. Of course BJP too has its own share of huge negatives. But in this present context, the entire opposition is demanding the JPC. Therefore it is the ‘stubborn’ attitude of the ruling combine, especially the Congress, which is truly threatening democracy. As Hindu puts if “The most damming of all, the Congress stands guilty of being party to paralyse, that gripped parliament in the last session, as a result of the stand off with the opposition over the formation of a Joint Parliamentary Committee.”
Yes, the obduracy of the party in power has become a ‘glue’ to bind to-gether the entire opposition, like it or not. Not that all opposition sitters are role models of probity in public life , but at least in the present context these opposition ‘stalwarts’ have earned an ‘aura’ by default as public spirited individuals. For a change it may be good for the democracy and by extension to the country.
Here it is very important to recollect and note that every spokesperson of the ruling combine including the Prime Minister and the boss of the Congress Party have consistently claimed that the government has nothing to hide and hence nothing to fear. So what really stops them from accepting the entire opposition demand for a JPC? Isn’t this baffling? The whole exercise of refusal for all the 22 days of the parliament’s winter session is very very unreasonable and completely defies logic. Except their oft repeated stand that JPC may not really yield anything more than a PAC report, they have nothing more to mouth. Under the circumstances, since the entire opposition has one point programme of the constitution of JPC, it is in the best interest of both transparency in 2G Scam, so also the protection of the institution of democracy in our socio/political life.
Thus, this stubborn refusal by the ruling party to agree to the simple and single opposition demand lends itself to unavoidable interpretation of being a party to the scam. Inder Malhotra painfully writes “It hurts all the more that to-day the powers that be have made an awful and easily avoidable mess of national affairs so serious as to drive one to tears,” commenting on the waste of winter session and the refusal of the government to agree to form JPC on the 2G Scam.
Here the role of Dr Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister becomes rather culpable. While the PM’s own financial integrity is beyond question, it is his failure to prevent others in the government to stop the loot which is the source of all his troubles. The opposition has never doubted his personal credibility. But can he shrug off his constructive responsibility and accountability as Prime Minister answerable to the parliament and therefore to the nation?
The principle of constructive responsibility and accountability demand that the leader owns up the lapse of his junior member of the team. Therefore it is incumbent upon Dr Singh to have stopped Raja in his tracks of allowing this huge national loss, not just by writing letters but to follow up with solid action.
Here it is pertinent to reproduce a part of the editorial of Free Press Journal, an English daily from Mumbai. Quote “Consider a parallel from the crime world. Say you come to know that a plan is being hatched to commit a murder. You tell the potential killer not to commit the murder. He still goes and murders whosoever he had planned to kill. The law is clear. It does not absolve you of the charge of not immediately warning the police about the murder plan. It is no defence under the law that you had told the killer not to kill. In other words the PM cannot wash his hands off the 2-G scam by citing that letter wherein he had told Raja not to sell the spectrum for a song to his hand-picked parties. No. He was expected to do more than just write letters to a wayward minister. He was expected under the constitution to safeguard the national purse by ensuring that Raja did not sell the precious spectrum on the cheap in order to line his own pockets with filthy lucre. Like the man who failed to inform the police about the murder, Singh too has a case to answer. Both cannot go to sleep with a clear conscience because both failed to act promptly and in time to prevent a crime from being committed. Since we still insist that Singh is a decent man, we expect him to allow a thorough and threadbare investigation of the biggest scam in the history of the country by a joint parliamentary committee (JPC). Anything less would be a travesty of parliamentary democracy.” Unquote.
There is a new dimension added by the ebullient Kapil Sibal, the new Telecom Minister. According to him CAG badly erred in computing the loss in 2G Spectrum and there is zero loss. While it may be shocking in the extreme, the demand for JPC becomes all the more tenable to prove the new telecom Minister right. In fact Mr Sibal should join the opposition to insist for JPC to get to the truth, although in one arrogant flourish of the hand this Mr Sibal demolished the very existence of the constitutional watch-dog of the central government, the CAG, itself.
The other day, while inaugurating the CNN.IBN Indian of the year award function, the Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee bemoaned the loss of entire winter session of parliament due to the intransigency of opposition parties (read BJP), by their unrelenting demand for Joint Parliamentary Committee to go into 2G Spectrum Scam. Yes, according to the media, the nation, on the face of it, has lost some Rs. 1.74 lakh crores. Opposition consists of BJP and other dozen political parties. Entire opposition is demanding the formation of JPC. Of course, how much JPC can unravel is a moot point. But it’s a legitimate demand of the opposition. There is absolutely no valid reason to reject such a demand. Congress party spokesmen have time and again labouriously tried to argue that there is no need for JPC, and all that JPC would do can be done by Public Accounts Committee. Surely opposition members are aware that both JPC and PAC are not the same. PAC has its own limits and terms of reference, which restricts the freedom enjoyed by the Joint Parliamentary Committee. As ‘The Hindu’ puts it “The PAC can do its work and Parliament can also conduct an open debate. But these cannot be a substitute for comprehensive enquiry by an empowered JPC.”
Jaswanth Singh, an opposition M.P. asked who should break the ‘logjam’ in the parliament if not the prime minister. But our Prime Minister speaks more to the press while on foreign tours rather than to Indian media. On the 11th Dec. last, during his flight from Brussels to Berlin Dr Singh told journalists that he was worried about the future of the parliamentary system in the wake of the complete washout of the winter session and hoped the opposition would see reason.
This is one of the most unfortunate streak of our most educated, economist, no-nonsense prime minister with impeccable integrity. No other No:1 executive of a nation has ever criticised his political opposition parties in the country while on a foreign tour like Dr Singh, which he has done several times on foreign soil. This one aspect is the absolute ‘thumbs down’ for Dr Manmohan Singh, in his otherwise clean image. Of course, his non-assertive style of functioning has lent itself to varieties of interpretations as Prime Minister inside and outside the country.
Coming to J.P.C., the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, even castigated BJP saying ‘BJP should apologise to the nation’ for the loss of time and money on account of 22 days Loksabha logjam. This is pure joke. Of course BJP too has its own share of huge negatives. But in this present context, the entire opposition is demanding the JPC. Therefore it is the ‘stubborn’ attitude of the ruling combine, especially the Congress, which is truly threatening democracy. As Hindu puts if “The most damming of all, the Congress stands guilty of being party to paralyse, that gripped parliament in the last session, as a result of the stand off with the opposition over the formation of a Joint Parliamentary Committee.”
Yes, the obduracy of the party in power has become a ‘glue’ to bind to-gether the entire opposition, like it or not. Not that all opposition sitters are role models of probity in public life , but at least in the present context these opposition ‘stalwarts’ have earned an ‘aura’ by default as public spirited individuals. For a change it may be good for the democracy and by extension to the country.
Here it is very important to recollect and note that every spokesperson of the ruling combine including the Prime Minister and the boss of the Congress Party have consistently claimed that the government has nothing to hide and hence nothing to fear. So what really stops them from accepting the entire opposition demand for a JPC? Isn’t this baffling? The whole exercise of refusal for all the 22 days of the parliament’s winter session is very very unreasonable and completely defies logic. Except their oft repeated stand that JPC may not really yield anything more than a PAC report, they have nothing more to mouth. Under the circumstances, since the entire opposition has one point programme of the constitution of JPC, it is in the best interest of both transparency in 2G Scam, so also the protection of the institution of democracy in our socio/political life.
Thus, this stubborn refusal by the ruling party to agree to the simple and single opposition demand lends itself to unavoidable interpretation of being a party to the scam. Inder Malhotra painfully writes “It hurts all the more that to-day the powers that be have made an awful and easily avoidable mess of national affairs so serious as to drive one to tears,” commenting on the waste of winter session and the refusal of the government to agree to form JPC on the 2G Scam.
Here the role of Dr Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister becomes rather culpable. While the PM’s own financial integrity is beyond question, it is his failure to prevent others in the government to stop the loot which is the source of all his troubles. The opposition has never doubted his personal credibility. But can he shrug off his constructive responsibility and accountability as Prime Minister answerable to the parliament and therefore to the nation?
The principle of constructive responsibility and accountability demand that the leader owns up the lapse of his junior member of the team. Therefore it is incumbent upon Dr Singh to have stopped Raja in his tracks of allowing this huge national loss, not just by writing letters but to follow up with solid action.
Here it is pertinent to reproduce a part of the editorial of Free Press Journal, an English daily from Mumbai. Quote “Consider a parallel from the crime world. Say you come to know that a plan is being hatched to commit a murder. You tell the potential killer not to commit the murder. He still goes and murders whosoever he had planned to kill. The law is clear. It does not absolve you of the charge of not immediately warning the police about the murder plan. It is no defence under the law that you had told the killer not to kill. In other words the PM cannot wash his hands off the 2-G scam by citing that letter wherein he had told Raja not to sell the spectrum for a song to his hand-picked parties. No. He was expected to do more than just write letters to a wayward minister. He was expected under the constitution to safeguard the national purse by ensuring that Raja did not sell the precious spectrum on the cheap in order to line his own pockets with filthy lucre. Like the man who failed to inform the police about the murder, Singh too has a case to answer. Both cannot go to sleep with a clear conscience because both failed to act promptly and in time to prevent a crime from being committed. Since we still insist that Singh is a decent man, we expect him to allow a thorough and threadbare investigation of the biggest scam in the history of the country by a joint parliamentary committee (JPC). Anything less would be a travesty of parliamentary democracy.” Unquote.
There is a new dimension added by the ebullient Kapil Sibal, the new Telecom Minister. According to him CAG badly erred in computing the loss in 2G Spectrum and there is zero loss. While it may be shocking in the extreme, the demand for JPC becomes all the more tenable to prove the new telecom Minister right. In fact Mr Sibal should join the opposition to insist for JPC to get to the truth, although in one arrogant flourish of the hand this Mr Sibal demolished the very existence of the constitutional watch-dog of the central government, the CAG, itself.
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