Sparks flew at a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee Friday with its BJP members objecting to the remarks of chairman K V Thomas — he is from the Congress — that the panel has powers to summon even the Prime Minister for deposition on the issue of demonetisation. As the meeting began to record the oral evidence of representatives of the Ministry of Defence on the management of defence offsets, BJP members of the committee protested remarks made in Kerala by Thomas who, while addressing the press Monday, said: “We have powers to summon anyone. Even the Prime Minister and the ministers. The committee has all the rights to call anybody involved in the matter. But that will depend on the outcome of the January 20 meeting. We can call the Prime Minister on the demonetisation issue if members unanimously decide.” Kirit Somaiya of the BJP said while there was no need to summon senior officers of the Finance Ministry in the midst of the Budget exercise, the PAC chairman had gone a step further by announcing that the Prime Minister too can be called. This, Somaiya said, was against the rules. As Bhupender Yadav cited the rules, Nishikant Dubey, also of the BJP, said the chairman “went beyond his brief” and meetings of the committee cannot be allowed until Thomas expressed “regret”. But Thomas stood his ground, maintaining that the panel had the power to call even the Prime Minister with the consensus of committee members and permission of the Lok Sabha Speaker. He recalled that BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi, as PAC chairman, had also said he intended to call the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, before the panel and the latter had expressed his readiness. Making clear he did not say that the Prime Minister is going to be called before the panel, Thomas cautioned members “against killing the Constitution”. Congress members Satyavrat Chaturvedi and Shantaram Naik rose to his defence. Members from other parties like P Venugopal of AIADMK and B Mahtab of BJD tried to cool tempers. Later, the committee put out a press release which stated: “The Public Accounts Committee are of the view that as per Rules prevalent today relating to issue of calling Ministers/Prime Minister to the Financial Committees, Direction 99 of Directions by the Speaker may be referred to wherein it states that though officials may be called to give evidence in connection with the examination of the estimates and accounts relating to a particular Ministry, Ministers shall not be called before the Committee either to give evidence or consultation in connection with the examination of estimates or accounts.” “However, Chairperson, when considered necessary ‘but after its deliberations are concluded may have an informal interaction with the Minister’,” it stated.
