PAC: BJP, Congress spar over Agusta and Make in India

The reconstituted Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on Wednesday heard strong demands from BJP members to take up the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter issue while a Congress member asked the parliamentary audit panel to examine the implementation of the Prime Minister’s “Make in India” scheme. There had been heated exchanges between the Congress and BJP over issues surrounding the AgustaWestland deal on several occasions during the Budget Session of Parliament.

Sources disclosed that BJP members in the panel would even go in for a vote if Congress members were disinclined to take up the VVIP helicopter bribery case.

Trinamul Congress’ Sukhendu Sekhar Roy wondered if it would not be a “conflict of interest” to discuss defence deals in the presence of Comptroller and Auditor General Shashi Kant Sharma, who was earlier defence secretary. Senior Congress leader and PAC chairman K.V. Thomas, however, reminded Mr Roy that the issue of Mr Sharma’s appointment as CAG had been settled earlier when the Supreme Court had rejected a plea seeking quashing of his appointment as CAG. The issues were raised in the presence of Mr Sharma, who made the customary CAG briefing in the first meeting of the newly-constituted PAC.

In the meeting — called to decide the subjects to be taken up during the PAC’s one-year tenure, BJP’s Vijay Goel said the PAC should take up the 2013 CAG report on “irregularities” in the VVIP helicopter deal.

The demand was supported by BJD’s B. Mahtab, who said there should not be any bar on the PAC taking up even those issues that are being investigated by agencies like the CBI or those pending before the courts. He added that the PAC had looked into CAG reports on coal block allocations. The panel chairman, however, remained non-committal on the demand and asked the members to write to him about the issues they want to discuss.

Attempting to put the BJP on the defensive, Congress’ Shantaram Naik demanded that the parliamentary panel examine the implementation of the “Make in India” initiative. On the AgustaWestland issue, the CAG had submitted a report in August 2013 concluding that the process — from framing of quality requirements to the conclusion of the contract for the helicopters — differed from established procurement procedures. The report had come up before the PAC, which was then headed by BJP’s Murli Manohar Joshi, but the PAC had not taken up the issue.

Congress members argue that the PAC chairman could have taken up the issue then had there been anything substantial to pinpoint bribes being paid to any politician. Mr Naik also wanted the PAC to take up the CAG report on private-public partnership (PPP) projects. The previous PAC, whose term ended last month, had recommended that the CAG should also have the power to examine PPP projects as they involve public money. Members felt it was an issue on which the government had to take a policy decision as private parties are against the CAG examining expenditure decisions in PPP projects.

The BJP’s Kirit Somaiya wanted the panel to speedily examine the issue of non-performing assets of banks, an issue the previous PAC examined in detail, and seek a response from RBI governor Raghuram Rajan as well as the public sector banks.

Mr Roy suggested that the panel take up the CAG report on purchase of trainer aircraft in which the audit watchdog has found certain irregularities.

A member is learnt to have said in the meeting that it should examine how much money the states were allocated under the 12th, 13th and 14th Finance Commissions, and how much of that money had really been given to them. The member demanded that the CAG should do an audit of the '81,000 crore allocated to the states by the Finance Commission.

The BJP’s Nishikant Dubey wanted the CAG to look into the implementation of the UPA government’s Land Acquisition Act and RTI Act, the sources said. The PAC decided that all those matters being examined by the previous committee on which reports could not be filed would be taken up by the new committee.