Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal on Sunday dismissed as a “queer theory” Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman Murli Manohar Joshi's assertion that majority did not count in finalising reports of a parliamentary panel. .
Charging Dr. Joshi and his BJP with stifling the views of the majority in their “endeavour to malign and vilify the UPA government on unsubstantiated personal views” Mr. Bansal said in a statement: “Decision by voting is inherent to democratic functioning of institutions.”
Ironically, Mr. Bansal sought to attack Dr. Joshi the very same day he was re-appointed Chairman of the PAC, which looked into the 2G spectrum allocation and whose draft report was rejected by a majority of 11 members on the 21-member panel.
At his press conference on Saturday, Dr. Joshi asserted that the rejection of his draft report by a majority was unconstitutional. “Several members had demanded a division but some others had opposed it too. The numbers are not important, the process is. I don't have to go by a majority … They cannot reject the report,” Mr. Bansal's statement quoted Dr. Joshi as having said at the press meet.
Refuting the PAC Chairman's viewpoint, he said: “Going by Dr. Joshi's queer theory, the entire democratic system would crumble with a minority in Parliament insisting on treating its views as the decision of Parliament.”
To buttress his point, Mr. Bansal cited the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha that pertain to parliamentary committees:
Rule 261 – “All questions at any sitting of a committee shall be determined by a majority of votes of the members present and voting.”
Rule 262 – “In case of an equality of votes on any matter, the Chairman or the person acting as such shall have a second or casting vote.”
Criticising Dr. Joshi for his actions and his queer theory, Mr, Bansal stressed: “The truth is that the process prescribed by the rules gives importance to numbers in no uncertain terms, as is clear from the above quoted two Rules.”
“In his anxiety to hurriedly get the PAC stamp of approval on his draft report, prepared by ignoring or twisting facts, Dr. Joshi has chosen to mislead the public by his aforesaid assertions,” Mr. Bansal said.
The Minister took the PAC chief to task for also addressing press conferences after each meeting of the committee, as it violated the rules of procedure.
“The fond indulgence with which Dr. Joshi shared the graphic details of each sitting with the media shattered the spirit of Rule 266 which mandates that “the sittings of a Committee shall be held in private.”
Pointing out that Dr. Joshi's actions had brought “grave disrepute” to the august chair of the PAC, Mr. Bansal said: “This breach of established norms continued till the end with the author of the draft report choosing to present it to the media first, and only later to the members of the Committee.”
He said: “It is time that instead of continuing to insist on terming the product of predetermined thought and political agenda as the report of the PAC, Dr. Joshi and BJP leadership undertook some honest self-introspection and made amends for inflicting a lacerating wound on Indian democracy.”
