BJP gags Parliament on CAG, govt buys time with silence
22 Aug 2012 12:06 PM IST
The functioning of Parliament is likely to be paralysed for the second consecutive day on Wednesday, with the opposition continuing to peg its demand on 'action' over the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) reports, whereas the government offering 'discussion' on the matter.
The house did not function of Tuesday, with a belligerent opposition demanding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation over the CAG report on irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks. Opposition MPs refused to let the house conduct its business, leading to angry exchanges between them and the treasury benches. Eventually, both houses were adjourned for the day before lunch.
Sources in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) said that the government was unlikely to offer anything more on Wednesday morning when the house reassembles, as it would like to finalise its strategy on the matter after the UPA's coordination committee meeting, which too is scheduled on the same day.
In a shot in its arms, the Samajwadi Party, which is supporting the government from the outside, has also said that it would prefer a debate on the floor of the house. The Bahujan Samaj Party, another key bloc, has, however, kept its position ambivalent, though it is unlikely to join hands with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on this matter.
As of now, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) are together in virulence as far as attacking the government on the issue of coal blocks allocation is concerned. On Tuesday, the BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said, 'In both houses of Parliament on Tuesday, we demanded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation. We will continue to strongly press for it, as the coal allocation issue is not an isolated incident: there are the 2G spectrum issue, Commonwealth Games scam, public-private partnership issue of airports and now the coal blocks.'
The CPI(M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury echoed similar sentiments as he said, 'That reports on the coal scam was not satisfactory.'
SHUKLA’S ‘ADVICE’ CAUSES STORM
On a day of several intrigues on the floor, the minister of state for parliamentary affairs Rajiv Shukla was caught on record telling the Rajya Sabha's newly elected deputy chairperson P J Kurien to adjourn the house, after the opposition created ruckus.
Amid the din, Shukla went to the chair and whispered in the ears of Kurien 'Pure din Ke liye house adjourn kara dijiye' ['Adjourn the house for the day']. The whisper, however, was caught on Kurien's mike and was amplified. The House was adjourned soon after for the day.
The opposition slammed the minister for the act. Speaking to Millennium Post, Shukla clarified, 'I did suggest to the chair to adjourn the house. I can give my opinion to the chair, but it is up to him to take a final call. As for the opposition’s attack, we are ready for talks to counter their allegations. We will present our side in Parliament, and they can express their views as well.'
The former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee defended Shukla and said that he may have given a suggestion, which was not binding on the chair.
CBI MAY REGISTER MULTIPLE FIRS IN COAL-GATE CASE
The CBI is likely to register more than one FIRs in the alleged irregularities in allocation of coal blocks after it came across several cases of violation of norms by state government officials and allottees.
The agency has already questioned senior bureaucrats who were overseeing allocation of coal blocks during 2006-09, CBI sources said.
Meanwhile, the agency is also taking into cognisance the Comptroller and Auditor General report on alleged coal block scam which was tabled in Parliament on Friday.
The sources, however, made it clear that CBI would not be going into policy issues but will limit its role to aspects where criminality could be established.
The agency has also questioned members of screening committee including secretaries and joint secretary in the ministry, CBI sources said.
They said the questioning of the coal secretaries, who also chair the screening committee, was done to understand the issues involved in the allocation of coal blocks during the period and so far agency has not found any irregularity on their part.
The agency has shortlisted nearly 15 companies which allegedly violated norms of allotment of coal blocks and questioning of their officials is going on, they said.
The agency has registered the Preliminary Enquiry (PE) , which is the first step of initiating the CBI probe, against unknown persons in connection with a complaint referred to it by the Central Vigilance Commission. Allocation of coal blocks is done through an inter-ministerial inter-governmental body called the Screening Committee chaired by coal secretary.
It includes the secretaries of nine ministries having interests in coal, besides heads of various PSUs, and chief secretaries of coal-supplying states.
DAY AFTER CAG RUCKUS, RAI’S SERVICE RECORDS GO MISSING
The service records of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai ‘are not traceable’, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has revealed in response to an RTI application.
Lucknow activist Arvind Shukla had last month filed the RTI application seeking details about the most powerful accountant of the country, who has gained renown as a vigilant anti-corruption watchdog and who was once again in the spotlight after the CAG reports on coal block allocation, power and the GMR-run Delhi airport were tabled in Parliament on 17 August.
The 64-year-old Kerala cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) official's service records/dossier have gone missing from the DoPT, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Shukla was told. In his 11 July application, he had sought to know details about Rai such as his Class 10 passing certificate, date of birth, certificate of selection to the civil services, appointment letter, selection into the Kerala IAS cadre and his retirement date. In a signed response to the RTI [No.13011/20/2012-AIS.I], the DoPT CPIO [central public information officer] Narendra Gautam informed Shukla that the office has been ‘informed by the concerned section of the UPSC application dossier of Shri Vinod Rai, IAS (KL:1972) is not traceable’.
The reply further stated that ‘the information sought for by you is not materially available with the undersigned’.The DoPT also suggested that Shukla could follow up his request with the Kerala government as the matter was ‘more closely concerned to the Government of Kerala’.Adding again that the department ‘does not have any record in this regard’, Gautam, an under secretary, also stated that the matter was subsequently being also referred to CPIO, Office of the CAG, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi, ‘to provide requested information’.
Shukla, through an earlier RTI, had found that former Uttar Pradesh cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh's service records - both as a trained pilot and as a government employee - were never found.
Sources in the DoPT say Rai's service records and dossier were last seen in 2005 and have been missing since. Said a senior official on condition of anonymity: ‘Under all circumstances, such a dossier is always put as record with the DoPT and the fact that it is not traceable is just amazing.’India's official auditor, headed by Rai, had last week revealed that the lack of transparency in the allocation of coal blocks to private players resulted in a loss of a whopping Rs.1.85 lakh crore [$37 billion] to the exchequer as on March 11 last year. The report prompted the opposition to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.agencies
The house did not function of Tuesday, with a belligerent opposition demanding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation over the CAG report on irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks. Opposition MPs refused to let the house conduct its business, leading to angry exchanges between them and the treasury benches. Eventually, both houses were adjourned for the day before lunch.
Sources in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) said that the government was unlikely to offer anything more on Wednesday morning when the house reassembles, as it would like to finalise its strategy on the matter after the UPA's coordination committee meeting, which too is scheduled on the same day.
In a shot in its arms, the Samajwadi Party, which is supporting the government from the outside, has also said that it would prefer a debate on the floor of the house. The Bahujan Samaj Party, another key bloc, has, however, kept its position ambivalent, though it is unlikely to join hands with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on this matter.
As of now, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) are together in virulence as far as attacking the government on the issue of coal blocks allocation is concerned. On Tuesday, the BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said, 'In both houses of Parliament on Tuesday, we demanded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation. We will continue to strongly press for it, as the coal allocation issue is not an isolated incident: there are the 2G spectrum issue, Commonwealth Games scam, public-private partnership issue of airports and now the coal blocks.'
The CPI(M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury echoed similar sentiments as he said, 'That reports on the coal scam was not satisfactory.'
SHUKLA’S ‘ADVICE’ CAUSES STORM
On a day of several intrigues on the floor, the minister of state for parliamentary affairs Rajiv Shukla was caught on record telling the Rajya Sabha's newly elected deputy chairperson P J Kurien to adjourn the house, after the opposition created ruckus.
Amid the din, Shukla went to the chair and whispered in the ears of Kurien 'Pure din Ke liye house adjourn kara dijiye' ['Adjourn the house for the day']. The whisper, however, was caught on Kurien's mike and was amplified. The House was adjourned soon after for the day.
The opposition slammed the minister for the act. Speaking to Millennium Post, Shukla clarified, 'I did suggest to the chair to adjourn the house. I can give my opinion to the chair, but it is up to him to take a final call. As for the opposition’s attack, we are ready for talks to counter their allegations. We will present our side in Parliament, and they can express their views as well.'
The former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee defended Shukla and said that he may have given a suggestion, which was not binding on the chair.
CBI MAY REGISTER MULTIPLE FIRS IN COAL-GATE CASE
The CBI is likely to register more than one FIRs in the alleged irregularities in allocation of coal blocks after it came across several cases of violation of norms by state government officials and allottees.
The agency has already questioned senior bureaucrats who were overseeing allocation of coal blocks during 2006-09, CBI sources said.
Meanwhile, the agency is also taking into cognisance the Comptroller and Auditor General report on alleged coal block scam which was tabled in Parliament on Friday.
The sources, however, made it clear that CBI would not be going into policy issues but will limit its role to aspects where criminality could be established.
The agency has also questioned members of screening committee including secretaries and joint secretary in the ministry, CBI sources said.
They said the questioning of the coal secretaries, who also chair the screening committee, was done to understand the issues involved in the allocation of coal blocks during the period and so far agency has not found any irregularity on their part.
The agency has shortlisted nearly 15 companies which allegedly violated norms of allotment of coal blocks and questioning of their officials is going on, they said.
The agency has registered the Preliminary Enquiry (PE) , which is the first step of initiating the CBI probe, against unknown persons in connection with a complaint referred to it by the Central Vigilance Commission. Allocation of coal blocks is done through an inter-ministerial inter-governmental body called the Screening Committee chaired by coal secretary.
It includes the secretaries of nine ministries having interests in coal, besides heads of various PSUs, and chief secretaries of coal-supplying states.
DAY AFTER CAG RUCKUS, RAI’S SERVICE RECORDS GO MISSING
The service records of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai ‘are not traceable’, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has revealed in response to an RTI application.
Lucknow activist Arvind Shukla had last month filed the RTI application seeking details about the most powerful accountant of the country, who has gained renown as a vigilant anti-corruption watchdog and who was once again in the spotlight after the CAG reports on coal block allocation, power and the GMR-run Delhi airport were tabled in Parliament on 17 August.
The 64-year-old Kerala cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) official's service records/dossier have gone missing from the DoPT, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Shukla was told. In his 11 July application, he had sought to know details about Rai such as his Class 10 passing certificate, date of birth, certificate of selection to the civil services, appointment letter, selection into the Kerala IAS cadre and his retirement date. In a signed response to the RTI [No.13011/20/2012-AIS.I], the DoPT CPIO [central public information officer] Narendra Gautam informed Shukla that the office has been ‘informed by the concerned section of the UPSC application dossier of Shri Vinod Rai, IAS (KL:1972) is not traceable’.
The reply further stated that ‘the information sought for by you is not materially available with the undersigned’.The DoPT also suggested that Shukla could follow up his request with the Kerala government as the matter was ‘more closely concerned to the Government of Kerala’.Adding again that the department ‘does not have any record in this regard’, Gautam, an under secretary, also stated that the matter was subsequently being also referred to CPIO, Office of the CAG, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi, ‘to provide requested information’.
Shukla, through an earlier RTI, had found that former Uttar Pradesh cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh's service records - both as a trained pilot and as a government employee - were never found.
Sources in the DoPT say Rai's service records and dossier were last seen in 2005 and have been missing since. Said a senior official on condition of anonymity: ‘Under all circumstances, such a dossier is always put as record with the DoPT and the fact that it is not traceable is just amazing.’India's official auditor, headed by Rai, had last week revealed that the lack of transparency in the allocation of coal blocks to private players resulted in a loss of a whopping Rs.1.85 lakh crore [$37 billion] to the exchequer as on March 11 last year. The report prompted the opposition to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.agencies
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