Speaking to the media for the first time on the PAC's controversial proceedings, Joshi said the report which indicts the Prime Minister, then finance minister P Chidambaram and the cabinet secretariat in the 2G scam was valid as it had been adopted.
"I would expect the Speaker Meira Kumar to place it before Parliament," he said, insisting that the document was a valid report of the PAC, not his personal views as alleged by the Congress.
"The Congress does not want the truth about corruption to come out. It was extraordinary that ministers were present in Parliament, sending in chits and calling members, telling them what to do," the BJP leader said. Dismissing the ruling party's charge that the document was a "Joshi report" meant as a hatchet job on the Prime Minister and the government, Joshi pointed out that the very same Congress had praised him as "wise, senior and neutral" just a couple of months ago. "Why did this change?" he remarked. Providing the answer himself, Joshi said, "Things began to change in April when the committee decided to call top officials like the cabinet secretary, the principal secretary to the PM, attorney general and the CBI director."
Joshi's aggressive remarks show that the UPA-opposition fight over the report is unlikely to end soon. The UPA had rejected the draft circulated by Joshi, saying that it was not the report of the committee but merely represented the partisan views of the chairman. The Congress, which won over the SP and the BSP to gain 11 votes in the 21-strong committee, wanted to reject the report "outright", but was thwarted by the chairman who did not allow a vote. With both sides tussling out on the report's status, the Speaker will have the final say.
Joshi said the report was to be adopted after a "paragraph by paragraph" discussion, but this could not take place as committee members from the ruling alliance did not allow proceedings. The BJP leader contended that their claim that a majority of 11 members had rejected the report was incorrect as "there is no provision for dissenting notes in the PAC".
