Refer booklet issue to panel: PAC
S. Satyanarayanan
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 27
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), probing the ‘coffin scam’, has said the issue of circulation of a booklet by Defence Minister George Fernandes to defend the deal be referred to the Privileges Committee.

The committee, headed by Mr Buta Singh, has also demanded that the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) report on defence deals, submitted to the Ministry of Defence, be made available to the committee in the context of its examination of the report of the CAG, also dealing with the defence purchases during ‘Operation Vijay’.

“The members unanimously reiterated to Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi that the act of Defence Minister of forwarding and authenticating the booklet of a scribe, R.V. Pandit, containing highly derogatory remarks against the CAG, a constitutional body, and Members of Parliament, amounted to prejudging the issue under consideration of the PAC. It also involved an issue of breach of privilege. The committee also concluded that the Speaker should be requested to have the matter involving breach of privilege examined and forward the same to the Privileges Committee of the House,” Mr Buta Singh said in his letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker on July 17.

Mr Buta Singh, who convened a special sitting of the PAC on July 10, said, “Members of the PAC were of the considered view that the action of the Defence Minister of circulating the booklet among Members of Parliament amounted to interference in their independent functioning and prejudging the issue under examination by them.”