Panaji:
It is the last day of this session of the Goa Assembly and the Speaker will decide whether a House panel's report on illegal mining should be tabled or not.
In significant reprieve for Goa's Congress government, the Speaker, Pratap Singh Rane, said yesterday that the report drafted by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), that indicts the Chief Minister for being "a silent spectator" and permitting illegal mining, can only be treated as "a draft report."
The Speaker says this is because four out the seven members of the PAC have written to him saying they are not in favour of the report and so have not signed it. "I am studying whether the report can be tabled (in the Assembly). If the majority of the members have not signed it, then it's a draft report, not a final report," Mr Rane told NDTV yesterday.
The PAC, made up of MLAs from different political parties, is headed by BJP leader Manohar Parrikar, who wants his report tabled soonest. Mr Parrikar's report indirectly faults Digambar Kamat, the Chief Minister, who has handled the Mining portfolio for 12 years. It refers to a collusion between politicians, bureaucrats and forest officials and finds that huge quantities of iron ore have been exported illegally from Goa; companies running mines have operated in reserved forest areas and in violation of wildlife laws.
The report was submitted by Mr Parrikar to the Speaker on Wednesday. The four members of the PAC who refused to sign it because they disagreed with its findings include three Congress MLAs and one from Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party.
The Chief Minister had said in the Goa Assembly earlier this week that not a single new mining lease was given during his tenure as Chief Minister - a statement the Opposition did not buy.