Joshi mulls of submitting PAC report to Speaker

New Delhi, April 29: A day after a chaotic meeting of the Parliament's PAC, its Chairperson Murli Manohar Joshi along with NDA, AIADMK, BJD and Left members are exploring the possibility of submitting the draft report on 2G scam to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar before its term expires on Saturday, April 30.

Joshi is understood to have held confabulations with members of like-minded parties in the Public Accounts Committee this morning and discussed the legal angles relating to his powers as its chairperson.

Sources aware of the developments said here that Joshi is busy examining the various rules governing the functioning of the PAC before he takes a final call on submitting the draft report to the Speaker.

A member of the committee pointed out that Joshi was "free" to submit the report to the Speaker's office even in her absence. She is on a tour to Arunachal Pradesh.

Joshi is also going through the objections raised by UPA members in yesterday's meeting.

The UPA members, however, feel Joshi cannot go ahead and submit the report as it was not passed by the PAC. 11 members of the committee, belonging to the Congress, DMK, SP and BSP had "rejected" the draft report yesterday.

These members had also accused Joshi of presenting a "one-sided" report with the "malafide" intention of destabilising the government. They demanded that he step down as PAC chairperson. A couple of members had accused Joshi of "outsourcing" the report, a charge they later withdrew.

There were charges and counter-charges over leakage of the report among the PAC members from both sides.

PTI