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Many twists in the PAC tale

Staff Reporter

Controversy over Public Accounts Committee meetings refuses to die down

NEW DELHI: The Public Accounts Committee of the Delhi Assembly that shot into the limelight because of its stinging "unofficial report'' on privatisation of the power distribution network in Delhi three years ago is again caught up in a controversy. One of its members now faces the prospect of disqualification having missed three consecutive meetings and later marking her attendance in a clandestine manner.

It is learnt that the five Congress members who had opposed adoption of the PAC report on power privatisation and its subsequent implementation have launched a deliberate "boycott'' of the PAC meetings. These five members -- former Minister Narendra Nath, Delhi Commission of Women chairperson Kiran Walia, Baljore Singh, Vir Singh and Ramesh Lamba -- have been missing from the PAC meetings in the past few occasions and have virtually refused to cooperate with its chairman and Congress MLA S.C. Vats. One of the meetings scheduled for Wednesday was called off at the last moment for some reason.

According to Government sources, the five Congress MLAs -- known to be close to Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit -- had been "instructed" to not be a part of the proceedings on power and try and sabotage adoption of the report. These MLAs are now also refusing to attend the meetings creating problems of quorum for conduct of meetings.

However, a fresh controversy erupted when Ms. Walia, who had missed the past two meetings, failed to turn up for the third meeting. It is learnt that Dr. Vats recorded her absence in the proceedings and the same was conveyed to Assembly Secretary Siddharth Rao. Under the rules, if a member misses three consecutive meetings, he or she stands disqualified from that committee and the Assembly Speaker has the power to nominate a new member.

A new twist was given to the controversy when it was found that Ms. Walia had signed the register of attendance without attending the meeting. Sources said that Dr. Nath had forced the Assembly Secretariat to allow Ms. Walia to sign the attendance register to prevent her disqualification. The recordings made by the chair in this case are understood to have gone against Ms. Walia and the ball is now in the court of the Speaker Chaudhary Prem Singh. "I have asked the Secretary Vidhan Sabha to place all the related facts about Ms. Walia's case before me and only then will I be in a position to take a decision. Nobody would be allowed to undermine the authority of the Assembly or the Speaker,'' he added.

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