Ramanisblog

Category: Radia Tapes

  • Joint Parliamentary Committee(JPC)

    In a JPC,PM may be forced to come and testify and there lies the catch.

    In a Parliamentary Committee you can hush up;in JPC very difficult

    The very fact a PM has been asked to testify may make the opposition to demand his resignation.

    JPC can even summon Sonia Gandhi.

    Story:

    Mandated to inquire into a specific subject, a JPC is constituted either through a motion adopted by one House and concurred by the other, or, through communication between the presiding officers of the two Houses. The members are either elected by the Houses or nominated by the presiding officers. As in the case of other parliamentary committees, they are drawn from different groups. The strength of a JPC may vary. For instance, one JPC comprised 15 members, while two others had 30 members each. The Lok Sabha share is double than that of the Rajya Sabha.

    When a committee is unable to complete its work before the expiry of its term or before the dissolution of the Lok Sabha, it reports that fact to the House. In such cases, any preliminary report, memorandum or note that may have been prepared by the committee is made available to the succeeding committee.

    Powers of a JPC?

    A JPC can obtain evidence of experts, public bodies, associations, individuals or interested parties suo motu or on requests made by them. If a witness fails to appear before a JPC in response to summons, his conduct constitutes a contempt of the House.

    The JPC can take oral and written evidence or call for documents in connection with a matter under its consideration. The proceedings of parliamentary committees are confidential, but in the case of the joint committee which went into “Irregularities in Securities and Banking Transactions”, the committee decided that considering the widespread public interest in the matter, the chairman should brief the press about deliberations of the committees.

    Ministers are not generally called by the committees to give evidence. However, in case of the Irregularities in Securities and Banking Transactions probe again, an exception was made, with the JPC, with the permission of the Speaker, seeking information on certain points from ministers and calling Ministers of Finance and Health and Family Welfare.

    The government may withhold or decline to produce a document if it is considered prejudicial to the safety or interest of State. The Speaker has the final word on any dispute over calling for evidence against a person or production of a document

    .

    There have been only four investigative JPCs so far.

    The first was instituted to inquire into the Bofors contract on a motion moved by then defence minister K C Pant in the Lok Sabha on August 6, 1987. The Rajya Sabha endorsed it a week later. The committee, headed by B Shankaranand, held 50 sittings and gave its report on April 26, 1988. Opposition parties boycotted the committee on the ground that it was packed with Congress members. The JPC report was tabled in Parliament, but it was rejected by the Opposition.

    The second investigative JPC, headed by former Union minister and senior Congress leader Ram Niwas Mirdha, was set up to probe Irregularities in Securities and Banking Transactions in the aftermath of the Harshad Mehta scandal. The motion was moved by then minister for parliamentary affairs Ghulam Nabi Azad in the Lok Sabha on August 6, 1992. The Rajya Sabha concurred with it the next day. The recommendations of the JPC were neither accepted in full nor implemented.

    The third investigative JPC was assigned to probe the market scam. Then parliamentary affairs minister Pramod Mahajan piloted a motion in the Lok Sabha on April 26, 2001, to put it in place. Senior BJP member Lt Gen Prakash Mani Tripathi (retd) was named the chairman. The committee held 105 sittings and gave its report on December 19, 2002. The committee recommended sweeping changes in stock market regulations. However, many of these recommendations were diluted later.

    The last JPC was set up in August 2003 to look into pesticide residues in soft drinks, fruit juice and other beverages and to set safety standards. The committee, headed by NCP chief Sharad Pawar, held 17 sittings and submitted its report to Parliament on February 4, 2004. The report confirmed that soft drinks did have pesticide residues and recommended stringent norms for drinking water.

    Why does the Opposition want a JPC?

    The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament is supposed to conduct a detailed examination of the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG), scrutinising the yearly accounts of the Government. Having 15 members of the Lok Sabha and seven members of the Rajya Sabha, the chairmanship of the PAC conventionally goes to a nominee of the main opposition party. The PAC calls upon ministries to explain cases of financial irregularities. The Opposition argument is that the 2G spectrum scam goes far beyond accounting. A JPC can spread its net wider and go into the larger gamut of allocation and look into the role of various players. More, once a JPC gets going, it would help the Opposition keep the heat on the government through consistent reporting of proceedings. The moot point is that PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi is already waiting in the wings to go into the CAG report. In case the government accepts the demand for a JPC, in effect, it may mean both a JPC and PAC.

    http://www.indianexpress.com/news/jpc-probe-a-goblet-of-fire/713146/0


    Related:

    Parliamentary Committee.

    Broadly, Parliamentary Committees are of two kinds – Standing Committees and ad hoc Committees. The former are elected or appointed every year or periodically and their work goes on, more or less, on a continuous basis. The latter are appointed on an ad hoc basis as need arises and they cease to exist as soon as they complete the task assigned to them

    http://india.gov.in/knowindia/parliamentary.php

    The government on Wednesday offered to hold a special session of Parliament to discuss the Opposition demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to probe the 2G spectrum allocation scandal.

    It was a direct response to the call for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh‘s resignation made earlier in the day at the National Democratic Alliance rally on the Ramlila maidan here that focussed on the numerous scams that have surfaced in recent months. Opposition leaders said the government must agree to a JPC probe or else the Prime Minister must resign.

    http://hindu.com/2010/12/23/stories/2010122359120100.htm

  • Radia ,Tata has no claim to privacy.

    Radia ‘s and Tata’s  claim to privacy does not hold water as their words involve policy making, attempt to bribe(refer perambalur Hospital equipment),controlling news, controlling media Funds and general disregard for Democracy in as much as they seem to manipulate Governmental policies,they , who have not been elected by people.

    The sheen of sleepless night of Tata on hearing about is lost when one hears about him in the tapes as well as his donation to Raja’s Constituency.

    As to Radia less said ,the better.

    Ordering IAS Officers, manipulating media, influencing policy decisions and brazen attempt to fix a price for every thing.

    rivacy is a right for private persons and also for private affairs of public persons. It is illogical and unreasonable for public persons to claim privacy for their public activities such as governance, policy making, industry, corporation, formation of ministry and politics. Privacy should not be mistaken with secret business operations causing harm to public institutions. Once a crime is committed, the suspicious persons need to be interrogated or investigated. Those suspected or involved cannot claim privacy and ask for protection of their identity, criminal secrets as privacy as part of right to life.

    Secret lobbying behind 2G spectrum corruption has to be probed into. Looking into authorized recorded tapes is a required and legitimate process, particularly if it involves the conversation of big people with political lobbyists, which insist on somebody to be made or not to be made the Telcom minister. If these tapes are blocked, the rich and powerful brokers would get emboldened to adjust the deals to escape from the long hands of law. Right to privacy is not secrecy or facility for hiding unethical deals and cornering state wealth through manipulations. If criminals or suspects seek this right no crime could be probed anywhere in the world.

    If Mr Ratan Tata, Ms Barkha Dutt, Mr Vir Singhvi and others who figured in Radia tapes and Ms Niira Radia herself feel defamed by these revelations, they can test their right to reputation by suing the publishers. Certainly they do not have Article 21 protection here. That right is available for victims of crime but not to criminals or their helpers.

    Privacy is an undefined right implied in Right to Life in general. It means the right to be let alone and its object is to protect inviolate personality. It can be regarded as a fundamental human right as the presumption that individuals should have an area of autonomous development, interaction and liberty, a “private sphere” with or without interaction with others and free from State intervention and free from excessive unsolicited intervention by other uninvited individuals. [1]

    Right to Information trumps Privacy

    Take a recent case in the UK where the media’s right to publish certain matters like names of accused was upheld in the general interests of public. Under the UK Human Rights Act 1998, Article 8.1 requires public authorities, including the court, to respect private and family life. Three claimants (brothers) were designated under the Terrorism (United Nations Measures) Order (SI 2006 No 2657) as persons whom the Treasury suspected of actually or potentially facilitating terrorist acts. Asset-freezing orders were made against these claimants. As other appellate courts confirmed these orders, the case reached Supreme Court, where it was held that the general public interest in publishing a report of the proceedings in which they were named was justified curtailing their rights to private life.

    A report on a study [2] on the interface between public interest, media and privacy for BBC and other State Commissions of UK concluded with a suggestion of  treating public interest as an exception to privacy: The general public put great value and importance on media information or coverage which promotes the general good, for the well-being of all. These include the identification of wrongdoing and of the wrongdoers themselves, with the media acting as guardians of shared moral and social norms. Under these conditions, and with suitable regard to the relative severity of the individual case, individuals’ privacy can be intruded upon – in extreme cases it should be – in the name of the greater good. [3]

    http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?269664

  • Raja will behave himself-Radia.

    “It Is Better to have A. Raja In The Telecom Ministry. He Will Behave Himself. Trust Me, He Will Behave Himself”

    Outlook magazine has unearthed 800 new tapped conversations involving the lobbyist Niira Radia in the 2G spectrum scam.

    The conversations, all part of an officially sanctioned tap, are on top of the 140 conversations placed in the public domain by Outlook three weeks ago.

    The intercepts offer fresh political insight into the working of the Kenyan-born British lobbyist who counts the Tatas and Ambanis among her clients.

    While Outlook reporters are still decoding the tapes, it is clear that they shine a grisly mirror on the interplay between government and big business, with the media at the end of the frame, at the time Manmohan Singh was forming his cabinet in May 2009—and in the 2G scam itself.

    What is also clear is that the retention of the DMK’s A. Raja in the telecom portfolio in the UPA-2 cabinet was central to the telecom ripoff, now presumptively estimated by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) at a mind-boggling Rs 173,000 crore.

    In one revealing conversation with Tarun Das, the former head of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Niira Radia says DMK chief Karunanidhi was insistent that the telecom ministry, held by Raja in the first term of UPA, should go to Raja again, although the stench of the 2G scam had already begun to emanate by then.

    “Karunanidhi wants Raja because he is a Dalit. The prime minister is only insistent that former shipping minister T.R. Baalu [charged of corruption in UPA-1] should not be in the cabinet,” says Radia.

    The Congress, Radia hints, was agreeable to this, but Raja’s predecessor Dayanidhi Maran, an aspirant himself, was spreading a canard that he was in touch with Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary, Ahmed Patel, who, Maran claimed, felt he was the more suitable candidate.

    “Karunanidhi is a totally confused man,” says Radia in the conversation.

    She also indicates to Das that the octogenarian Tamil Nadu chief minister was trapped between a daughter who threatens to commit suicide and a wife who wants “to do this”.

    Radia then requests Das to convey to the Congress that they should only talk to DMK Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi, who has a line to her father, Karunanidhi, and that the Congress must not talk to Dayanidhi Maran.

    “The PM also spoke via her [Kanimozhi],” says Niira Radia.

    Tarun Das interjects at this point and says Raja is very unpopular.

    To which Radia responds: “That’s only with Sunil Mittal [of Airtel]… it is better to have Raja in telecom. He will behave himself. Trust me, he will behave himself….I have promised, Raja has promised that he will speak to Mittal and deal with the matter. Leave that to me.”

    In another chat with an unidentified, female Tamil Nadu politician, Niira Radia reveals that she was clued into the internal politics of the Karunanidhi family that is now central to the 2G scam. She says it was a mistake on the part of Kanimozhi to let go of the Minister of State berth and that she should look after herself first and then think of others.

    “Tell her [Kanimozhi], she should be friends with Azhagiri [Karunanidhi’s elder son],” Radia says.

    The new conversations are contained in the over 5,800 conversations that are now in the safe custody of the Supreme Court.

    The interception of phones belonging to Radia was done by the income-tax department and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) while investigating a “criminal conspiracy between certain public servants and some private persons in the grant of UAS licenses in 2007-08.”

    The Outlook Exclusive comes in the midst of a Parliament paralysed by opposition demands for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe, an investigation by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), and the appointment of a former Supreme Court judge to probe the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

    The leak also comes in the wake of a blazing exchange of open letters between Ratan Tata and former telecom entrepreneur Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and on the very day the Congress-led UPA government assured the Supreme Court of India that it would take every measure to check the leak of further tapes and transcripts involving Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata.

    http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?268619


  • News X controlled by Radia-Tapes.

    News X funds controlled by Radia.

    Click link for audio.

     

    This conversation between the operations head of news channel NewsX and Niira Radia shows how she virtually controls and funds the channel.

    Niira Radia: Ya?

    Jehangir Pocha: Hi. Listen, we have a big problem here.

    NR: What?

    JP: Our salaries are due but money has not come in yet.

    NR: Salaries are…when are they due?

    JP: Due on first, na?

    NR: Haan…toh aa jayega first ko.

    JP: First is Monday.

    NR: Haan, toh tumhe Monday release karna hai na, payments ko? I don’t know how much Rajeev has asked. Maine budget to bhej diya.

    JP: Listen to me, na. Today is Friday. Even if it comes (on Monday) we have to issue our own money and cheques.

     

  • How to Slander Praful Patel-Radia Tapes

    Praful Patel Dossier to Star.

    Click link above for audio.

    Radia talks to her secretary Cecilia to fish out a “dossier” on Praful Patel and Air India, which she can pass on to Star News. ‘Woh Waapas Bhijwaya Tha (Document On Praful Patel)’