A meeting of Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) investigating the 2G spectrum allocation case witnessed uproarious scenes on Tuesday after left and BJP members demanded that more witnesses including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh be summoned before the committee.  

The opposition members also demanded that the former telecom ministers A Raja and Dayanidhi Maran, former telecom secretary Sidharth Behura,  Prime Minister's advisor TKA Nair, PM's principal secretary Pulok Chatterjee, former Cabinet secretary KM Chandrasekhar, RBI governor D Subbarao and attorney general GE Vahanvati, should also be called as witnesses.

The Congress accused the BJP of trying to get the term of the committee extended so that they can exploit the issue for electoral gains. The term of the committee will end in December.

There was heated exchange of words between the opposition and the Congress members soon after the JPC chairman PC Chacko asked the members to speed up process of drafting the report keeping in view that only few months are left for end of the committee’s term. The Congress members were up in arms against the opposition demand for more witnesses saying that committee’s term has already been extended twice. They also endorsed Chacko’s concerns that the report should be finalized as soon as possible.

The Congress member Manish Tiwari responded to opposition’s list of witnesses by saying that the panel should also summon the witnesses from the NDA rule which included officials in PMO like Brajesh Mishra and NK Singh. There was also a demand by the Congress members to include former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Sushma Swaraj and Jagmohan.

The committee authorized Chacko to draw up the list of the witnesses to be summoned.