Why Past Experience With Investigative JPCs Don’t Inspire Much Confidence
Any questions regarding the functioning of the committee will be determined by a majority of the members present and voting as per Rule 261 of the Lok Sabha Rules. Therefore, it will be entirely in the hands of the ruling party MPs to decide who should be summoned for examination by the committee. Furthermore, the functioning of the committee is subject to the discretion of the Speaker, who is empowered under Rule 270 to determine whether the evidence of a person or the production of a document is relevant for the purposes of the Committee.
The Speaker can also issue directions under Rule 283 to regulate the work of the Committee. The Speaker exercised this power recently by preventing officials from Kashmir to testify before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology, on the issue of restriction of internet and telecommunication services in the Union Territory.
For instance, when the Bofors bribery allegations were being investigated by the JPC in 1987, Aladi Aruna, a member of the committee, prepared a list of people he wanted to question. However, the committee chairman and Congress leader B Shankaranand, rejected the list, with the approval of the majority of MPs in the committee, who belonged to the then ruling party.
Aruna also alleged that the chairman did not give the members sufficient notice for preparation before determining the dates for the examination of witnesses. Similarly, the JPC which investigated the 2G spectrum scandal, was also plagued by allegations of bias. Sitaram Yechury, in his dissent note, highlighted how material witnesses such as the former IT Minister A Raja, were not subjected to oral cross examination by the committee.