JPC meet on 2G put off amid differences between UPA, Opposition

A crucial meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), looking into the 2G scam, was put off on Tuesday amid sharp differences between UPA and opposition members on summoning fresh witnesses before writing the draft report. In on Tuesday's meeting, JPC chief P C Chacko was supposed to discuss the future course of action of the panel whose term comes to an end later this year.

Opposition parties have demanded summoning Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram. Congress, which has a majority in the JPC, along with SP, BSP and other UPA partners, wants to prepare the report by next month so that the final report can be tabled in Parliament in December.

A section of Congress members are of the opinion that if BJP continues to press for summoning of the Prime Minister and Chidambaram, they should also insist on calling Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj as a witness as she had held the Telecom portfolio during the NDA regime. They claimed that former Telecom Minister Jagmohan should also be summoned as a witness as he was against several decisions taken by the NDA government on telecom issues. Amid differences, on Tuesday's meeting was postponed for a "couple of days". Chacko said since one of the members Jaswant Singh is contesting the vice presidential poll, the meet was put off. Chacko's one-on-one meeting with opposition leaders have yielded little results as both Congress and BJP have stuck to their stand on summoning witnesses. BJP members said the list prepared by Chacko should be further scrutinised as it had the name of a PMO official who has passed away.