Public Accounts Committee Chairman and senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said here on Tuesday that the panel had received a reply from Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal debunking the CAG report on losses to the exchequer in 2G spectrum allotments. He said the issue would be discussed further. (Mr. Sibal had said: “We are extremely pained at the methodology adopted by the CAG for arriving at the [allocation loss] figures that have no basis.”)
Mr. Joshi was talking to journalists after CBI Director A.P. Singh deposed before the PAC on the 2G scam issue.
According to Dr. Joshi, the PAC members put several questions to the CBI chief and his response was free and frank. Mr. Singh was asked about the statement made by the former Telecom Minister, Arun Shourie, and he told the members that the agency had summoned him to appear on February 21.
Asked whether the committee intended to summon Mr. Shourie, the PAC Chairman said the members would like to wait for the outcome of the CBI meeting. “Let him appear before the CBI and then we will decide,” Dr. Joshi said.
In its FIR filed in October 2009, the CBI put the presumptive loss to the exchequer at Rs. 22,000 crore. The PAC has been looking into the irregularities in the allotment of 2G licences and has so far summoned several persons, including the CAG and the Reserve Bank of India Governor.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has volunteered to appear before it and the committee is yet to take a view on the offer.
