The office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India could not have timed the celebration of its 150th anniversary better. On the day the president and the prime minister of India paid tributes to CAG’s long record of service to the country, Parliament and the nation were pouring over every line and para of a report that has clearly indicted former Union Minister for Telecommunications A Raja. If there was any doubt in anyone’s mind regarding the fairness of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s demand for Mr Raja’s resignation, then all such lingering doubts were rubbished by the CAG report. It is a pity that the prime minister was unable to take this action earlier. The earlier plea of some in the ruling coalition, including in the Congress party, that dismissing Mr Raja would destabilise the government was a spurious argument. The Karunanidhi government remains in office in Chennai at the sufferance of the Congress party. The Congress party was remiss in not using its leverage to seek Mr Raja’s ouster when it came to be known that he had misused his powers to favour some companies over others in the sale of telecom spectrum. Finally when forced to act, the DMK has fallen in line. The CAG has, of course, cleared the prime minister of any wrongdoing by drawing attention to the fact that he had sought to restrain Mr Raja, even though to no avail. The prime minister is at worst guilty of an error of omission. Even this delay could have been averted if he had gone by his instincts as revealed by his decision in May 2009 not to allow Mr Raja to return to his ministry.
On the same day that the CAG report was made public, the Supreme Court (SC) made some observations about the slowness of the prime minister’s response to petitions seeking action against Mr Raja. These observations are well-intentioned and the Prime Minister’s Office should have been more efficient and alert than it has been wont to. However, even as the higher judiciary demands a more efficient government, it should exert more of its energy in seeking a more efficient judiciary as well. The efficiency of India’s courts is pathetic, with litigants waiting for years before their cases are taken up. The Supreme Court’s admonishment of the prime minister on grounds of delay in action is very much like the pot calling the kettle black!
Now that the CAG report has been presented to Parliament, the Public Accounts Committee should take stock of the report and its comments, and direct the government as to what action ought to be taken to punish the guilty. At the same time, the relevant investigating agencies of the government must address the questions raised by the CAG on a range of questionable decisions taken by the ministry of telecommunications. There is no reason whatsoever why there should be a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) on the issue. None of the three important JPCs set up in the past quarter century — Bofors (1987), securities scam (1992) and stock market scam (2001) — has nailed a single politician. Rather, each of the JPCs managed to nail just a couple of businessmen, letting politicians go scot free. There is no substitute for transparent investigation and that ought to be the demand of all those interested in the truth being out.
