Annoyed by the allegations leveled against Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai, by former deputy CAG R P Singh, the Bharatiya Janata Party want the retired officer to be called before the Joint Parliamentary Committee, which is investigating the 2G spectrum allocation scam, and explain the charges made by him.
BJP leaders believe that the Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance was responsible for carrying out this veiled attack on the CAG and R P Singh must be questioned on the allegations made by him.
“We will ask for the deposition of RP Singh before the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) so that we know how he was pressurized by the CAG to sign the report. We will make the demand to JPC chairman on December 5 when the meeting is scheduled,” said Yashwant Sinha, senior BJP leader who is part of the parliamentary committee.
The controversy came to light after RP Singh, former director general of audit, post and telecommunication, claimed that the presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore given by CAG was not part of the draft report prepared by him and his report didn’t contain any such figure.
“The audit of Ministry of Telecom was directly under my charge and I had prepared a draft audit report covering each and every aspect. My report did not contain any loss figure,” RP Singh, former director general of audit, post and telecommunication, had recently told reporters.
During the previous deposition of RP Singh before JPC in November last year, the former deputy CAG had claimed that that since Trai had not recommended auctioning of 2G licenses and union government had also taken a policy decision, so loss in the alleged scam can neither be quantified not calculated and the figure of Rs 1.76 lakh crore, as suggested by CAG, was at best a “mathematical guess” and there was no evidence to support it.
The former deputy CAG had categorically told JPC that he was forced to sign the report because in a hierarchal organisation, it is not possible for him to ignore orders given by a senior. Singh had also told the members that he stood by the draft report prepared on May 31, 2010 which suggested that loss in 2G spectrum allocation scam cannot be quantified or calculated.
Facing several questions launched by the members of opposition party in the JPC meeting, Singh had emphasised that the field audit team of CAG had calculated the loss figure at Rs 2,645 crore in the draft report and not Rs 1.76 lakh crore but the finding was overruled by the seniors in the CAG.
