LS Speaker denies having power to remove Jaswant Singh as PAC chiefIndia News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Saturday said she could not remove the former BJP leader Jaswant Singh from the post of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC), as there was no provision in the parliament proceedings to deal with such a scenario. "There is a rule which states that if for any reason the Chairman is not able to fulfil his duties for any reason then only can he be removed. If for any reason he is unable to perform," Meira Kumar said in a news conference in the national capital. BJP had asked Jaswant Singh to step down from the post of Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) after he was expelled from the primary membership of the party over Jinnah issue in August. However, Singh declined to comply and the BJP members started boycotting the panel's subsequent meeting in protest. BJP has asked Singh, who is member of Lok Sabha, from Darjeeling constituency, to quit the parliamentary panel on "morality" grounds. The 22-member PAC committee scrutinizes government spending. Jaswant Singh was appointed its chairman when he was in the BJP.