Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention, the inspector asked Sherlock Holmes. “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time,” said Mr Holmes. “The dog did nothing in the night-time,” said the inspector. “That was the curious incident,” replied Mr Holmes. That about sums up the approach of the chairman of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) – Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Murli Manohar Joshi – in naming the prime minister and his office in its draft report on the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG’s) report on 2G telecom licences. If this had been the unequivocal opinion of the PAC as a whole, it would have amounted to substantial criticism of the government and the prime minister. But even that would not have implied culpability, much less guilt. That the dog did not bark does not implicate the dog in the crime. Whether or not the lack of diligence on the part of the Prime Minister’s Office was an act of omission or commission has not been clearly established. However, the real problem with Mr Joshi’s draft report, which a majority of the committee members have now rejected, is that it has generated avoidable controversy. Given that all PAC reports have by tradition been adopted consensually, Mr Joshi should have worked towards a consensus rather than queer the pitch for a confrontation. That confrontation has since taken an unfortunate turn which can only diminish Parliament in the eyes of the people, rather than empower the institution and bolster its image among an increasingly cynical public.
The partisan division of the PAC on the controversial draft report will also raise questions about the relevance of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC). If members of Parliament are divided along party lines, who would be able to testify as to what is truth and what is fiction? Mr Joshi began this exercise with his own party attacking him for the enthusiasm with which he got the PAC to take up the CAG report on the 2G issue. At a time when the BJP was keen on getting the government to agree to a JPC, it was not keen on a diversion like this. In the event, Mr Joshi went along with his party to endorse the need for a JPC. Having done so, his hurry in getting his version of events out before his term as PAC chairman ends is rather puzzling. It is now all too clear that such partisan division of opinion will also mar the work of the JPC. In the process, the public is the loser. They do not know what to believe and how much of what is being said is motivated and partisan and what exactly is the truth. A consensual report, even if not a unanimous one, would have established a large part of the truth, even if not the whole truth. That would have been a better outcome and restored people’s faith in their elected representatives and institutions of governance. The muddled and muddied outcome that is now before us can only add to all-round cynicism about the ineffectiveness of democratically elected representatives of the people in improving governance.