As a controversy rages over the draft report by the Public Accounts Committee on the 2G scam, Parliamentary experts are unanimous that recommendations of a Parliamentary committee has to be accepted or at least "taken seriously" by the government.
According to constitutional and parliamentary experts, though the PAC is a recommendatory body, reports of which are not legally binding, traditionally the government has accepted most of the reports submitted by it.
The government has to file an Action Taken Report within three months on the report.
"It has to be stated in writing as to why certain recommendations of the PAC have not been accepted by the government to the committee on which it gives further views," noted constitutional expert Subhash Kashyap said.
The PAC sends its report to the Speaker in case the House is not in session and a copy is sent to the government.
"Normally, the government largely accepts the recommendations," Kashyap said, adding that the reason behind it is that the PAC was the oldest and most respected Parliamentary committee.
Agreeing with this view, former Lok Sabha secretary general P D T Achary said according to Parliamentary convention and tradition, most of the recommendations of the
PAC are accepted or at least paid "serious attention".
The PAC can suggest legal or otherwise action against some individuals or group of individuals or it can suggest some systemic changes for the future, he said.
The 2G spectrum allocation is, according to him, the most politically sensitive case probed by the committee which was set up during the British rule in 1921 in the wake of the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms.
The then Committee on Public Accounts underwent a radical change with the coming into force of the Constitution of India on January 26, 1950, when the Committee became a Parliamentary Committee functioning under the control of the Speaker with a non-official Chairman appointed by the Speaker from among the Members of Lok Sabha elected to the Committee.
"Over a period of time, the PAC has been expanding its role," he added.
The current 21-member PAC, headed by veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader Murli Manohar Joshi, is delicately poised on the issue of 2G probe. It has seven representatives from the Congress, four from the BJP, two each from AIADMK and DMK, and one each from Shiv Sena, Biju Janata Dal, Janata Dal-United, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Communist Party of India - Marxist.
Joshi, in his draft report circulated to the members, came down heavily on the Prime Minister's Office, Cabinet Secretariat and faulted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the 2G scam. The Congress and the DMK hit back, demanding the PAC chairman's resignation.
Riled by critical comments against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the ruling coalition accused Joshi, a veteran BJP leader, of having "malafide intentions" to destabilise the government.
The draft report had criticised the PMO and Cabinet Secretariat for not taking "corrective action" over 2G scam.
