Government on Saturday said Parliament was “ill-equipped” to probe 2G Spectrum allocation and ruled out adjourning sine die the winter session of the House ahead of its scheduled end due to the logjam over the opposition demand for a JPC into the scam.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said the question of accepting JPC does not arise and termed the opposition demand only a “political battle“.
“Their (the Opposition) demand for JPC is a political battle. They want to have a political weapon in their hands, which we will not allow,” Mr Bansal told reporters here on Saturday evening.
He alleged the Opposition wanted to paralyse Parliament and destabilise the government. “They want to create a situation where the government cannot take policy decisions and implement them,” he said, adding “Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who heads 30 GoMs and many EGoMs, has not been able to take meetings for a long time and even I (as Union Water Resources Minister) have not been able to devote time in the wake of Parliament logjam,” Mr Bansal said.
Dismissing the demand for JPC as needless, he said government was ready to give even four days for discussion to the Opposition to raise the 2G but they should first let Parliament function.
“JPC will be entirely a political body. There are 37 parties in Parliament and not more than seven parties will be represented in JPC. Is Parliament a representative body or JPC? No creation of Parliament can be above Parliament itself,” he said.
Mr Bansal said the opposition says that “we want to investigate (the 2G issue) but JPC cannot probe. It is the government agencies like CBI, Income Tax Department and other agencies which can do that. Parliament is ill-equipped to investigate.”
Mr Bansal said Parliament’s winter session would not be suspended in the wake of the logjam and would continue till December 13. It was “unfortunate the MPs were not behaving responsibly”, he added.
Keywords: India, 2G spectrum scam, Parliament impasse, JPC probe,
