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Journalism of Courage
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India is being increasingly questioned,as reports emerge about the divisions within the agency on calculating the loss to the public exchequer from the 2G licencing process. The CAG shot for drama in its high-profile press conferences,in which eye-catching numbers were trumpeted that became firmly ensconced in our collective memory. The 2G report was brandished triumphantly,like a World Cup trophy,in what appeared less an exercise in informing the public and Parliament than a submission to prime-time sensationalism. The estimate of the presumptive loss to the treasury from the licencing process was questioned almost immediately; naturally,given that the figure insisted on,Rs 1.76 lakh crore,was so enormous,so outlandish.
It seems,now,that the CAGs hubris was even greater than previously suspected. So intent were the agencys leaders on the higher figure that lower estimates from those closer to the subject were ignored; and,as this newspaper reported on Saturday,the lead auditor was discouraged by the agencys head,Vinod Rai,from asking for the response of the department of telecommunications to the CAGs suppositions. The refusal to allow the DoT to explain itself violates simple principles of justice and our sense of due process. The auditor in question,R.P. Singh,was supposedly the one conducting the 2G audit,and he had estimated the losses Rs 2,645 crore a number substantially different than the final reports Rs 1.76 lakh crore. That was tacked together using various different methods most remarkably,by directly comparing values from the 3G auction last year to the 2G licencing process half a decade earlier.
