I have nothing to hide, ready to appear before PAC: PM

New Delhi, Dec 20 (PTI) Seeking to counter the Opposition
clamour for Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into 2G scam,
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today made an
unprecedented offer of appearing before the Parliament's
Public Accounts Committee (PAC), saying he has "nothing to
hide".
"As Prime Minister of this great country for last
six-and-a-half years, I may have made mistakes but I have
tried to serve my country to the best of my ability.
"I sincerely believe that like Caesar's wife, the Prime
Minister should be above suspicion and it is for this reason
that I am prepared to appear before the PAC even though there
is no precedent to that effect," Singh said addressing the
Congress Plenary here on the concluding day of the two-day
conclave.
Noting that the PAC is headed by senior BJP leader Murli
Manohar Joshi, he said it has "all the powers which can be
given to a JPC and the PAC is the acknowledged watchdog of any
financial impropriety or misconduct".
Rejecting the opposition demand for a JPC probe which led
to a washout of the entire Winter session of Parliament, Singh
said "government is of the considered view that in the
background of the multi-faceted action now in place, no
purpose will be served by a JPC, except to delay the
inquiry and politicise the matter".
"I wish to state categorically that I have nothing to
hide from the public at large and as a proof of my bonafides I
intend to write to the Chairman of the Public Accounts
Committee that I shall be happy to appear before the PAC, if
it chooses to ask me to do so," Singh said in his 30-minute
address amid applause from over 15,000 delegates.
In his first major response to the 2G spectrum
controversy and Parliament paralysis, the Prime Minister
attacked the BJP, saying it has been "falsely propagating"
that the UPA government is against the JPC because "we do not
want the Prime Minister to be questioned by a Parliamentary
committee, thereby implying that I have so meting to hide".
Promising that nobody found guilty in 2G allocation as
well as CWG irregularities would be spared, he said the
government was conducting a thorough probe in all aspects of
the organisation of Commonwealth Games and the 2G spectrum
allocation.
"These inquiries will be pursued vigorously and it is my
promise to you that no guilty person will be spared - whether
he is a political leader or a government official, whichever
party he may belong to and howsoever powerful he may be," he
said.
"We wanted to discuss all these issues in Parliament but
one entire session got wasted because of opposition's
obduracy. It is difficult to comprehend that only a JPC should
probe the 2G spectrum matter," he said. PTI