PAC members want to summon Raja, Joshi says no

Though the 2G scam may be revolving around A Raja, Parliament's Public Accounts Committee chief MM Joshi has rejected demands from some members for calling the former Telecom Minister who is in jail.

Joshi has argued that calling Raja would involve long processes as he in judicial custody and that there are enough records and witness statements to "draw conclusions".

The demands for calling Raja before the Committee as a witness were raised by members during the April 21 meeting to enable them to question about the entire affair, sources said.

Some members had insisted that Raja should be called before the Committee as he is the "hero" behind the "drama" of the 2G spectrum allocation scam, the sources said.

Responding to this, Joshi has said in a letter to the Committee members that the issue of calling Raja was raised at the "fag end" of the panel's term which expires on Saturday.

Joshi said since Raja was in judicial custody, it would take time to call him before the PAC because of processes involved, the sources said.

He insisted that the Committee can "draw conclusions" about the scam without talking to Raja by perusal of records and statements of witnesses.

The demand for calling Raja was among the five issues raised by members, which included whether the PAC should abandon examination of the 2G issue when the JPC has already been formed, relevance of probing the 2G issue when the matter is sub-judice, extending the term of the present PAC and increasing the ambit of PAC probe into 2G scam from 2007-08 to 2003-10.