2G JPC report a Congress document, says BJP

New Delhi, April 19 (IANS) The draft report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on 2G spectrum allocation appeared to be a Congress document, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said Friday while labelling its leakage to the media a "gross breach of parliamentary propriety".

"The draft report of the JPC on 2G issues has been widely reported in the media. This is a gross breach of well settled parliamentary propriety where any report/draft is debated, discussed, amendments are moved in the formal meeting and thereafter a view is taken," said BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad.

The parliamentary panel probing the 2G scam has blamed former telecom minister A. Raja for the spectrum allocation and cleared Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram of any wrongdoing.

"Going by the contents of the report in the media, I can only say the 2G scam was one of biggest scams in the history of independent India, which shamed the country world over and what has been published in the media... I can only say it appears more to be a Congress document not a JPC draft report," he said.

"There is a keen overpowering desire to exonerate the prime minister and finance minister and yet to objectively consider the ramification of this massive scam which has shamed the country," Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

Prasad said he was yet to go through the draft report but would raise the issue of its leakage in the media "forcefully".

"Yesterday (Thursday) night I received a phone call and a message from the office of the JPC that the draft report is being sent. We waited till midnight but the report did not come. I personally talked to many members of the JPC and they also said they have not received the report," he said.

"I have received the draft report hardly few moments ago and I am yet to go through it... I cross-checked with many members and they have not received it till now," he said.

Expressing reservation about the content, Prasad said: "We have very serious objections that we shall articulate forcefully and very firmly in the meeting of the JPC scheduled to be held on March 25."

An entire winter session of parliament was washed out in 2011 as the BJP did not allow both the Lok Sabha and ten Rajya Sabha to run till a JPC probe was set up to look into the telecom licence policy.

The issue came up after an official auditor's report alleged a presumptive loss of Rs.1.76 lakh crore in the allocation of 2G spectrum licences during the UPA-I government.