Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan was on Tuesday named a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the 2G spectrum scam from the Rajya Sabha after her colleague Abhishek Singhvi recused himself on the plea that he had represented telecom companies in court.
The announcement was made by Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal while moving the motion in the Rajya Sabha for the appointment of the JPC, which will comprise 20 members from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha. The motion was adopted in the Lok Sabha on February 24.
The other members from the Rajya Sabha are P.J. Kurien and Praveen Rashtrapal of the Congress; Sitaram Yechury of the CPI(M); Tiruchi Siva of the DMK; S.S. Ahluwalia and Ravi Shankar Prasad of the BJP; Yogendra P. Trivedi of the Nationalist Congress Party; Satish Chandra Mishra of the Bahujan Samaj Party; and Ramchandra Prasad Singh of the Janata Dal (United).
“I was a senior counsel years ago for several telecom companies challenging the telecom policies when Messrs Pramod Mahajan, Ram Vilas Paswan and Arun Shourie were Telecom Ministers [in the National Democratic Alliance government],” Mr. Singhvi said, when he was asked by BJP members to disclose why he had recused himself from the JPC.
Terms of reference
The three-point terms of reference of the JPC will be to examine the policy for and Cabinet decisions on, and their consequences in, the allocation and pricing of telecom licences and spectrum from 1998 to 2009; to examine irregularities and aberrations, if any, and their consequences in the implementation of decisions and policy prescriptions from 1998 to 2009; and to make recommendations for formulating appropriate procedures for implementing laid-down policy in the allocation and pricing of licences.
