Setting- up of JPC

The Parliament had been mortgaged for the entire Winter Session over the opposition’s demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee in 2G Scam. Winter Session was not allowed to function as the ruling benches refused to concede the demand of JPC. Undoubtedly, 2G Scam is of collossal amount of government exchequer worth Rs 1.76 lakh and it must be investigated thoroughly and properly, though the minister allegedly involved in the scam had to go.

A Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the 2G spectrum allocation issue has been set up amid charges and countercharges between the Government and the Opposition. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee moved the motion for appointment of the 30-member Committee to look into the telecom policy pursued from 1998 to 2009 including the allocation and pricing of telecom licences and spectrum.The Committee will also examine “irregularities and aberrations, if any” and the consequences thereof in the implementation of government decisions and policy prescriptions.The Committee, which will give its report by the end of the Monsoon session of Parliament, will make recommendations to ensure formulation of appropriate procedures for implementation of laid down policy in the allocation and pricing of telecom licences.

Constitution of the JPC, with 20 members from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha, formally ends the deadlock over the issue which had washed out the entire Winter session of Parliament.

At the first instance, it also appears that the Manmohan Singh -led UPA government due to compulsion of coalition politics it was lax and complacent in taking action against the corrupt persons. But when the apex court intervened in the matter and directed the government to act, it had to set-up a Supreme Court monitored Enquiry to go into 2 G Scam and that showed immediate result in CBI raids at various places belonging to those who were accused in it. CBI Enquiry was put under the lense of the apex court.

On the other side, the Opposition put up a united posture in their demand of JPC as it was meant to go into other aspects in the 2 G Scam than the criminality. Because a report came into the light that a woman named Nira Radia, a P R Consultant of a Corporate company and lobbyist, was lobbying for corporates by establishing close links with the minister, journalists and bureacrats. It was also reported that she also exerted extra-constitutional influence on the UPA Government for choicest allocation of portfolio of telecom to former minister under scrutiny. It is correct that this nature malaise can only be probed correctly by JPC. That why though belated, the Government has now done the right thing, that also paved the smooth running of Parlianment.

Now when the Manmohan Singh Government conceded JPC, it is the responsibility of all the 30 MPs who constitute to go into the scam thoroughly and sincerily so that the guilty could be brought to book. Otherwise, this will also prove to an another opportunity for some selected MPs to drain away government exchequer.