New Delhi, June 14
In a major jolt to Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairperson Murli Manohar Joshi, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has rejected the controversial report on the Spectrum scam he had submitted on April 30, without managing to build a consensus around it in the panel.

Simply put, the Speaker, by returning the report to the PAC for reconsideration, has imposed a ban on any move to make its controversial contents public. Under Direction 71 (A) of the Directions of the Speaker, it has been stated that no report of a parliamentary committee would be made public unless tabled in the House.

Only the Speaker has the power to waive this direction to facilitate publicising of important reports that have not been made the Lok Sabha’s property. But this action is resorted to when the Lok Sabha is still alive while the next one is due to be formed following a General Election.

In May 2009 for instance, former Speaker Somnath Chatterjee had waived Direction 71 (A) in case of some reports, enabling them to be shared even though they hadn’t been presented to the House.