“A brief statement was made by the Army on the sensitive issue. But no questions were taken,” a member said.

The Army, after some initial reluctance, briefed members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence on Friday on the surgical strikes carried out on September 29 on terror launch pads along the LoC in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

The briefing was in the form of brief statement made by the Vice Chief of the Army, Lt. Gen. Bipin Rawat — and no questions were taken after that.

The Congress’ Madhusudan Mistry wanted to ask some questions but he was not permitted to do so by panel chief Maj. Gen. B.C. Khanduri.

Postal voting

After the briefing on the surgical strikes, the committee discussed postal voting by Defence Services Personnel in general elections.

Earlier, on the agenda was oral evidence of the representatives of the Ministry of Defence on shortage of ammunition for the Army including Mountain Strike Corps. That was changed on the eve of the meeting to “oral evidence of the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Law and Justice and the Election Commission of India on the Status of implementation of e Postal Ballot System”.

The Congress members of the panel had objected to the government’s reluctance to brief the committee on the surgical strikes. In a joint statement, Congress MPs Madhusudan Mistry and Ambika Soni said on Thursday: “The decision not to brief the committee over surgical strikes under the garb of secrecy only amounts to ‘lack of confidence’ in the Members of Parliament, who are in the committee and who are bound by the oath of secrecy. This position is absolutely unacceptable to us.”