The JPC Tussle

Given that the prospect of the Opposition stalling the upcoming Budget session of Parliament would be wholly inimical for democratic functioning , it is welcome that the Prime Minister has announced the formation of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the 2G spectrum issue. The point may well be raised as to what the government eventually gained by delaying the JPC. The answer is that the tussle over the issue was clearly part of the political battle on crafting public perceptions over combating corruption. In that context, it is imperative that the working of the JPC, or the terms of reference it will work under, reportedly yet to be finalised, are not taken hostage by the same impetus to garner political capital. It is also important that the JPC must not detract from, or impede, the probes of the various investigative agencies that are looking into the spectrum allocation issue.

Indeed, it would be heartening were the JPC to become an instance of a non-partisan Parliamentary effort to unambiguously probe corruption involving a national resource. That would be all the more significant, given that there is ample room to doubt whether a JPC can achieve anything concrete, not least given the fate of the previous JPCs (on Bofors and the Harshad Mehta scam, for example), as well as the fact that a report from such a body does not have any penal consequences. In fact, the JPC would do well to also look into the larger issue of the spectrum policy, including pricing, and whether the greater public good is best served by having upfront payments for allocation. The whole point of a JPC, as with the probes of the investigating agencies, must be to find evidence that establishes wrongdoing in how licences were allocated and the commercial transactions of companies in order to fix culpability and punish the guilty. It is solely political compulsions that dictated both the demand for a JPC and the government’s eventual acceptance of the Opposition’s demand. The final aim should be to translate this into an important step in the formation of a unified front in the fight against systemic corruption.