New Delhi: Public Accounts Committee Chairman Murli Manohar Joshi has written a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar requesting her to ensure that the authority of PAC and Comptroller and Auditor General is not impinged upon by ministers.
Referring to Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal's recent outburst against CAG report, Joshi said the Telecom Ministry was given ample time to respond on the findings of the CAG and questioned the timing of the attack when the report has already been tabled in Parliament, sources said.
Joshi said since the Speaker is the competent authority to guide the Public Accounts Committee, she should ensure that no such "impropriety" on part of the ministry recurs.
He said such comments will have a serious impact on the health of democracy and if a confrontation between CAG/PAC and the ministry is allowed to develop, then the days of "healthy democracy" are numbered.
Joshi also wondered whether Sibal's statement had the permission and consent of the Prime Minister.
The BJP leader had after the last meeting of PAC on January 12 said, "The sense of the committee was that Sibal's remarks were improper, against propriety and an attack on the dignity of PAC and CAG."
The Telecom Minister had termed as "utterly erroneous and without any basis" the estimated presumptive loss arrived at by the CAG on account of allocation of 2G spectrum to telecom operators.
The Supreme Court on Friday also pulled up Sibal for making statements undermining the CAG report on the 2G scam and asked him to behave with some sense of responsibility.
"It is unfortunate. The minister should behave with some sense of responsibility," a bench of Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly said.
It directed the CBI to go ahead with the probe into the scam without getting influenced by anybody's statement. The CAG has estimated a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer in allocation of 2G spectrum during the tenure of former Telecom Minister A Raja.
"In our opinion, the CBI which is conducting investigation into the 2G scam is expected to carry out the probe without being influenced by the statement made by anybody, anywhere, including the press," the bench said.
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