The UPA has succeeded in putting the draft report of the public account committee (PAC) in limbo. That was only expected: after all, the committee headed by BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi had focused on the role of the prime minister’s office (PMO) in the 2G scam. No wonder, then, that the Congress and DMK members in PAC did what they did – with or without the help of SP and BSP.

The UPA is now trying to change the goalposts and is attempting to take us all down the labyrinthine maze of technicalities. However, the key question should remain who was responsible for the Rs 1,76,000 crore loss to the exchequer. If the draft report pointed (as the famous phrase goes) the needle of suspicion towards the PM and the PMO (read the draft excerpt below), then the important thing should be to follow it up. After all, as none other than our erudite prime minister has repeatedly put it, Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion. What is happening over the past 24 hours or so is that the courtiers of Caesar’s wife are trying to hide her behind the veil of legalities.

Talking of the legal aspects, yes, they are not clearly defined. Can there be a voting on a draftr report? Not sure. But one precedent worth considering is from the PAC on defence purchases during the Kargil war. The then defence minister, George Fernandes was not highly cooperative and (politicians being what they are) the committee members from the ruling coalition refused to sign the report. But Buta Singh of the Congress as head of the committee went ahead and submitted the report before parliament – without even the dissent notes.

Joshi too may follow this precedent and submit the draft report to Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar. So, we are in for more discussions on rules and regulations. But the procedural ambiguities will not put Manmohan Singh above suspicion. The Congress can very well go ahead and dump the report with the force of its brute majority, but such subterfuges will only bolster the suspicion.

It’s time for the ruling coalition to come clean – provided they are.

WHAT THE DRAFT PAC REPORT SAYS ABOUT PMO

1. “So far as the role of PMO is concerned the Committee find that despite noting the Communications Minister's decision not in conformity with the Transaction of Business Rules which provide that “cases in which a difference of opinion arises between two or more Ministers and a Cabinet decision is desired, shall be brought before the Cabinet,” the PMO did not enforce the above Transaction of Business Rules to sort out the difference of opinion between the Minister of Law and Justice and the Minister of Communications.”
 
2. The Committee's examination reveals a strange sequence of events relating to the processing of the Communications Minister's letter dated Dec 26th 2007, in the PMO. The processing commenced on Dec 31st and closed on Jan 31, 2008. The Communications Minister's letter and External Affairs minister's note with a suggested course of action was submitted to the PM on Jan 7, 2008 after 12 days of the Communications Minister. On Jan 11, 2008 the Private Secretary to PM conveyed the desire of the PM to take into account the developments concerning the issue of licences. It is pertinent to note that the UAS licences had already been issued on Jan 10, 2008. The file was resubmitted to the PM on Jan 15, 2008 with a clarificatory note.''
 
3. The file was sent back to the Private Secretary with a note from Private Secretary to the PM “The PM wants this informally shared with the Department” and does not want a formal communication and wants PMO to be at an arm's length. The PM's desire to keep the PMO at an arm's length indirectly helped the Communications Minister to go ahead and execute his unfair, arbitrary and dubious designs.
 
4. On Jan 3, 2008 by just acknowledging the Communications Minister's letter, the PM seemed to have given his indirect green signal to go ahead with his plans and decisions.. What concerns the Committee is the fact that when the Communications Minister was in such a hurry to implement his decisions, there was no plausible reason to submit the file to the PM after 12 days.