Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar is yet to take a decision on the contentious report of the public accounts committee on the 2G spectrum allocation scandal presented to her by PAC Chairman Murli Manohar Joshi on April 30. In a press release on Wednesday, the Speaker said she had reconstituted the PAC on May 1. Mr. Joshi is to continue as Chairman for the year starting May 1, 2011 as it...

He contests the validity of some members rejecting it The public accounts committee's voluminous report on 2G spectrum allocation that has become a political hot potato landed on the desk of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Saturday afternoon; soon after this, PAC Chairman M.M. Joshi said he expected her to table it in Parliament. “It [the report] has been received by the Speaker. I did not meet her, nor did...

Loss to the exchequer due to the grant of 122 licences to new entrants in 2008 was Rs.1.24-lakh crore Government lost Rs.36,000-crore in grant of dual-technology licences The government must get exact loss calculated instead of washing its hands of it The draft report of the public accounts committee on the 2G scam has come out with yet another figure for the loss to the exchequer, putting it at Rs.1.90-lakh crore in the...

A senior journalist, who was recently caught in the Radia tapes lobbying along with some other journalists for some important persons vis-à-vis 2G spectrum controversy, admitted what they did was “utterly unprofessional.” The draft report of the public accounts committee (PAC), which went into the spectrum allocation deal, claimed under the heading “role of media and whistleblowers”: “When the committee sought the response of a senior journalist about these taped conversations,...

Chaotic scenes; coalition MPs say the draft was “outsourced” After accusations and counter-accusations through unprecedented chaotic scenes at a meeting of the public accounts committee (PAC) here on Thursday, 11 of its 21 members recorded their “vote” to “reject” the draft report on 2G scam circulated to the members by the Lok Sabha Secretariat on Wednesday. The majority that voted to reject the report said they intended to send recorded rejection...