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Journalism of Courage
The lead auditor who disagreed with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the quantum of losses in the 2G spectrum scam pegging it at less than two per cent of the CAGs estimate,was,in writing,discouraged by CAG Vinod Rai to seek comments from the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) for inclusion in the final report.
This revelation,which puts a question mark on the manner in which the CAG pushed its report,lies in records accessed by The Indian Express .
R P Singh,Director General of Audit (Post & Telecommunications),who conducted the audit on 2G,said that it was difficult to quantify the losses.
Questioning the methodology of estimating losses by looking at the value of stake sale,Singh put the losses at Rs 2,645 cr (on the basis of inflation costs) while the final report pegged presumptive losses at Rs 1.76 lakh cr (based on 3G auction prices).
This wasnt the only difference within the audit body. Days after questioning the loss figure,Singh sent a letter to the DoT on July 19,2010 asking for comments on audit observations. The CAG received three replies: two from the then Telecom Secretary P J Thomas and the third,dated September 21,2010,from Secretary R Chandrashekhar.
In these replies,the DoT pointed out that since a lot of documents had already been taken from their offices by the Central Bureau of Investigation,they would send their part replies and subsequently revise their replies.
On September 23,Singh forwarded these replies received from the DoT Secretary to CAG Vinod Rai as well as to Deputy CAG Rekha Gupta for perusal and neccessary action.
Records with The Indian Express show that the two top CAG officials,on file,instructed Singh not to correspond with the DoT further.
On the same day that the Director General forwarded the DoT Secretarys response,Rai added his comments: I wish we had not written to DoT.
Rekha Gupta,too,annexed her comments on the file. She wrote: Please convey CAGs observations to DG (Singh). Also,please reiterate that he is not to write to Secretary DoT on this or any other issue for the present. This noting was also made on September 23,almost two months before the 2G report was placed in Parliament.
Contacted by The Indian Express, Singh,who retired from the CAG a month ago,confirmed the sequence of events but said he would not like to comment on the CAGs written instructions issued to him.
I wrote to the DoT on July 19,2010 seeking their comments and we also subsequently got the records from the CBI. The DoT sent early replies from their institutional memory seeking a time extension should they want to give a revised reply. When the revised replies came from the new DoT Secretary,my draft report was already ready and I forwarded the response to the Deputy CAG.
When contacted,Rekha Gupta said she was looking into the context of the correspondence.
CAG spoksperson B S Chauhan said: This is all internal CAG correspondence. We will share whatever is wanted with the Joint Parliamentary Committee.
