After Opposition guns for his Head, PC Chacko seeks probe into leak

NEW DELHI: JPC chairman PC Chacko has urged Speaker Meira Kumar to order an investigation into who leaked the panel’s draft report on 2G scam to the media. The Speaker is to decide soon on whether to allow a no-confidence motion against him sought by opposition parties over alleged partisanship.

In a letter to the Speaker, last Friday, Chacko presented his defence on five main points, including his reasons for not letting Raja depose before the JPC. With no precedent of a no-confidence motion against a JPC chairman, the case has become unique, leaving both sides to quote rules and argue their side:

Ravi Shankar Prasad, BJP member in JPC told ET that while there was no precedence, the Constitution allowed it. “Since JPC is a replica of Parliament, Articles 91 and 92 of Constitution that apply in the case of a no-confidence motion against the Speaker can be applied to admit a no-trust motion against the JPC Chairman. This means he can vote once but can’t do a casting vote in case of a tie,” Prasad argued.

Not allowing a casting vote to Chacko would make the Congress position vulnerable. Even with SP and BSP support, the ruling side only has half the numbers, making Chacko’s casting vote important.

Union minister Kishore Chandra Deo countered Prasad saying that Articles 91 and 92 of the Constitution are not applicable in seeking a no-confidence motion against a JPC chairman. The Speaker appoints chairpersons to represent it in parliamentary committees, just as the President appoints governors as his representatives in states, said Deo “Just as there are no provisions to move a no-confidence motion against governors, there are also no provisions to move a no-confidence motion against chairpersons of House committees,” he said. Former Sp e a ker S omnath Chatterjee said a vote is preferable if there’s no other way out to finalise the committee’s report. “If there is no way-out, I would rather favour adopting the report through voting,” said Chatterjee. But Deo points out that in 1966, an all-India Speakers’ convention discussed what to do in case voting became unavoidable in finalising a report by a parliamentary committee and recommended that since the chairperson of a parliamentary panel is both a participant and presiding officer, the chairperson of the committee can first vote as a participant and, in case of a tie, he/she can cast a second vote as casting-vote as the presiding officer. “This has been spelt out in the Rule 262, read along Rule 261, of the rules and procedures of Lok Sabha,” said Deo.