By IANS,
New Delhi : Congress leader Manish Tewari’s statement asking the BJP to “rein in” its Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chief has not gone down well with the parliamentary panel chairperson Murli Manohar Joshi, who said the PAC will take “appropriate steps” if it was found to be true.
“There was a seminar statement from one of the Congress leaders asking the BJP to rein me in,” Joshi told reporters, objecting to Manish Tewari’s statement that the Bharatiya Janata Party needed “to rein in their member who is chairperson of the PAC”.
Joshi said the empowered panel has “taken a serious note” of the statement and sought to check its veracity.
“The committee has authorised me to take appropriate steps against Manish Tewari,” he said.
Tewari earlier asked the opposition party to “rein in” its leader Joshi for exceeding the PAC’s brief in examining a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report related to the allocation of 2G spectrum licences.
The alleged irregularities highlighted by the CAG are being investigated by multiple probe agencies, including a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) that was formed on the insistence of the BJP. The JPC is also probing the first-come-first-serve based policy followed since 1998 in the allocation and pricing of telecom licences and spectrum.
The PAC, which is parliament’s financial oversight panel, has said it would also examine the licensing policy – opening a turf war with the JPC headed by P.C. Chacko of the Congress.
Joshi said the “threat of parallel probe by PAC being projected is unfounded and baseless”. “The matter is being probed by many agencies and we are also investigating.”
Tewari, who is one of the 30 members of the JPC, Monday said: “If they (BJP) believe in the efficacy of JPC, they need to rein in their member who is chairperson of PAC.”
Chacko and Joshi met Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar last week to put forth their case on the controversy over the jurisdiction of the two committees.