Home secretary Rajiv Mehrish expresses regret for skipping Public Accounts Committee meet

NEW DELHI: Home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi has expressed “sincere and deepest regret” to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee for failing to turn up for a meeting of its sub-committee on March 7, despite being in Delhi.

The Cabinet Secretariat forwarded Mehrishi’s letter to PAC, a person privy to the information said. In his letter to the Cabinet Secretariat Mehrishi said: “…I have always had the highest regard and esteem for Parliamentary Committees…The officers who represented the MHA were fully conversant with the facts of the case…and would…have briefed the committee fully…my sincere and deepest regret for the inconvenience caused to the committee, if any, may also kindly be communicated to it.”

Mehrishi said that he could not go on his scheduled tour on March 7 as home minister Rajnath Singh wanted to discuss several issues with him. “…HM informed me that he would like to discuss a series of issues during the day (as per the list enclosed) and it was then decided by HM that my programme should be cancelled.”

He said that he “sent out text messages” to colleagues Rina Mitra and Gopal Reddy, requesting them to inform the committee. “I was in Delhi and unable to come for the meeting because of the very tight scheduled…The SMS was sent while I was with the HM and as such, there was no other way of communicating the actual facts to the committee.”

He added: “From the above, it is clear that neither there was any intent to miss the meeting while I was in Delhi, nor any intent to mislead the committee about the tour.” ET had last month reported that the PAC sub-committee headed by Bhartruhari Mahtab had taken a serious view of Mehrishi's absence and committee members felt that it was a fit case for contempt and breach of Parliament’s privilege. After Mehrishi’s explanation and expression of regret, PAC is likely to treat the matter as closed.