Opposition may try to rewrite JPC's draft

Rubbishes contents as pro-govt whitewash

Parliament is unlikely to function on Monday when the Budget session resumes after a vacation. For, Opposition parties are not only furious about the leak of the draft report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the telecom scam but also its contents.

In fact, the Opposition might move in the JPC for an alternative report, taking advantage of its numerical strength in the panel, if some allies of the government vote against it (see box). This issue will come up on coming Thursday, when the draft is discussed in the JPC before it is finalised.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is going to move for an inquiry into the circumstances of the leak of the draft (see inset box). That apart, parlays might take place between the Left parties and BJP to force Parliament to adopt an alternative report of the JPC that will put a very different complexion on how the scam occurred.

Opposition sources on the JPC say the draft report, as it stands today, suggests the prime minister and then finance minister, P Chidambaram, had nothing to do with the spectrum allocation, specifically the first- come-first-served (FCFS) policy adopted by then telecom minister A Raja. Arun Jaitley of BJP and Sitaram Yechury of CPI(M) say this is not consistent with the facts placed before the JPC. (KEY CIVIL SERVANTS IN THE JPC REPORT)

“From the draft JPC report, it appears the decisions were taken by Raja alone. This is not the conclusion we have reached, looking at the same set of documents and hearing the depositions of the same set of people. The draft report also tells us that the submissions of the attorney general (G E Vahanvati, who was solicitor general in 2008 when the FCFS system was followed) are not acceptable. If they are not acceptable, the first premise does not hold,” said a panel member.

According to the draft report, Vahanvati was in the know of the procedure approved by the Department of Telecommunications in the file notings dated January 7, 2008.  However, the draft report says Raja ‘forged’ a subsequent communication, deleting some lines and essentially ‘distorting’ the concept of FCFS. In the draft report, Raja is quoted as saying that he kept Vahanvati in the loop about the procedure of the FCFS system all along.

The Opposition members in the JPC say this contradiction suggests the conclusion of the draft report, that “the evil design of  implementation of the process of distribution of Letters of Intent (LoIs) only corroborates to the extent to which the FCFS criterion in essence  got diluted and the established practices were violated” is only a partial reading of the whole matter, and the culpability of all concerned — including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram — must be accepted.