Rejecting Opposition demand for removal of P C Chacko as Joint Parliamentary Committee chairman, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Thursday asked the panel chief and members to work out an agreeable solution to end the current "impasse" on its report on 2G Spectrum.
The DDCA issue is likely to create ruckus in Parliament on Monday with parties looking to target Finance Minister Arun Jaitley as he is "practically the number two in the government".
Joint parliamentary committee Chairman P C Chacko on Tuesday said the committee, probing the 2G telecom spectrum allocation scam, has called all important witnesses but is yet to take a decision on calling former Telecom Minister A Raja before it.
Firmly backing DMK leader A Raja, prime accused in the 2G scam, in the wake of the controversy over filling of vacancy in the Joint Parliamentary Committee, the party today asserted it will not allow him to be made a "scapegoat".
'My belief that I could protect the Himalayas was shattered.'
Gandhi used a purported audio clip to allege that Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar is 'blackmailing' Modi.
'The Modi government has been taking credit for improvement in respect of the ease of doing business in India.' 'But when I look at the scams I cannot help feeling that it is too easy to do business with banks in India, if one is a Harshad Mehta, Vijay Mallya or Nirav Modi and their tribe,' says former Union home secretary Madhav Godbole.
Amid a stalemate between the government and the Opposition over the issue, the House failed to transact any significant business and was adjourned for the day.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday welcomed the Supreme Court direction to the Central Bureau of Investigation to carry out probe in the 2G spectrum scam from 2001-08, which includes part of the National Democratic Alliance tenure, but insisted that only a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe could bring out the whole truth.
Congress has repeatedly alleged a "scam" in the purchase of Rafale fighter jets claiming the cost per aircraft in 2012 was agreed at Rs 526.10 crore while the one signed by the Modi government costs 7.5 billion (Rs 1,670.70 crore per aircraft).
He was suffering from lung cancer for last several months, West Bengal CPI secretary Swapan Banerjee said.
Tharoor put the blame for the logjam in Parliament on BJP and accused the saffron party of reducing the "temple of democracy to a rubber stamp for its agenda or worse, a notice board to announce its unilateral decisions".
Leader of opposition Sonia Gandhi, deputy leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha, Shivraj Patil, and Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Vijay Kumar Malhotra and former minister Shanta Kumar may also be part of the committee.
The government on Thursday gave a clean chit to 12 soft drink brands, saying that their samples tested were 'well within the safety limits' prescribed for packaged drinking water at present.
Joint Parliamentary Committee Chairman P C Chacko on Wednesday rejected Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha's demand for Prime Minister Minister Manmohan Singh's appearance before the panel probing the 2G issue, saying the committee has "passed that phase".
Warning against conflict of interest of financial institutions, which have been chosen to sponsor UTI-II, the Joint Parliamentary Committee probing the stock scam and UTI muddle, has recommended that sponsors.
Ending its nearly two-month-old boycott, Bharatiya Janata Party members on Thursday attended the meeting of Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 2G scam and said they would continue to press for summoning of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram as witnesses.
Opposition members said the former finance minister had misled the Lok Sabha on the Calcutta Stock Exchange payment crisis and the UTI fiasco.
Chairman of the Upper House Venkaiah Naidu Naidu clarified that the Triple Talaq Bill will not be taken up on Friday as a consensus has not yet been evolved on the issue.
The two Houses were adjourned for the day amid sparring between the treasury and the opposition benches on the issue.
Senior Congress leaders admit that the JPC issue has boomeranged against the party, reports Renu Mittal.
In the first two months of the current fiscal, Indian exports of finished steel reportedly grew by almost 76 per cent on a YoY basis and China alone accounted for close to 60 per cent of the increase.
Former Telecom Minister A Raja, the main accused in 2G spectrum scam, has told the Joint Parliamentary Committee that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was in the loop over policy decisions and has accused Attorney General G E Vahanvati of telling a "series of untruths" against him.
BJP-led NDA has said it will strongly demand that the Telangana Bill be brought in the Winter Session of Parliament and press for debates on issues like internal security, violence against women and subversion of constitutional bodies like JPC on 2G scam.
Documents related to 2G spectrum allocation cannot be accessed by the public till the Joint Parliamentary Committee completes its probe and submits its report, the Central Information Commission has stated. The JPC, which is probing the high-profile scam, has directed the finance ministry not to reveal any information till it completes the probe.
Even as the government prepared the ground for a fruitful session by reaching out to main opposition BJP on the Land Acquisition Bill, new disclosures in the media might play a spoiler for it.
"I had done everything in consultation with the Prime Minister. After demitting office, I told everyone that whatever I did was in consultation with the Prime Minister," Raja said.
Joint Parliamentary Committee chairman P C Chacko on Tuesday hit out at BJP leader Yashwant Sinha for writing to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to appear before the panel examining the 2G spectrum scam, dubbing it as a "political stunt" and against established "norms".
A political storm has already broken out with an agitated opposition alleging that the report on 2G is a "cover up" and has been prepared to give a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
Former telecom minister A Raja, the main accused in the 2G scam, was not allowed to appear before the Joint Parliamentary Committee that is looking into the alleged mishandling in the allocation of 2G spectrum.
Former telecom minister A Raja on Monday wrote a strongly-worded letter to Joint Parliamentary Committee Chairman P C Chacko, slamming the draft report of the committee on the 2G scam.
A political storm has already broken out with an agitated opposition alleging that the report on 2G is a "cover up" and has been prepared to give a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
The Opposition is all set to corner the government in Parliament which resumes on Monday after a recess with BJP and other parties deciding to raise the "deliberate leak" of the JPC draft report on the 2G scam and the reported vetting by the Law Ministry of the CBI report on coalgate.
Bharatiya Janata Party member in Joint Parliamentary Committee Yashwant Sinha on April 1 wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to appear before the panel to clear his name following allegations levelled against him.
On December 4, the Union Cabinet cleared the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan if they faced religious persecution there. The government intends to introduce bill in Parliament's Winter Session next week. What is this legislation and why is it contentious?
The JPC has completed the process of questioning most of the bureaucrats in the 2G scam investigation
The prime minister must clear his stand on the Rafale deal after Hollande's remarks, he said.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was aware of the contents of the controversial 2G note which was issued as an office memorandum at the insistence of the Prime Minister's Office, a top official told the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Thursday.
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