CAG report not an indictment: Moily

PTI

New Delhi, 13 November 2010: Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily on Friday said the report of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on 2G spectrum allocation cannot be called an indictment of Telecom Minister A. Raja, as claimed by the opposition, as it is not final.

 

“You cannot call it an indictment. It is not a final report. Technically no one can call it indictment,” Mr. Moily told PTI here, adding he had not seen any minister resigning following a CAG report. However, at the same time, he hastened to add that the CAG report has “weightage” as it is by a constitutional body. The CAG report is actually a query raised by the institution on a particular ministry, the Minister stressed.

 

“CAG is an important institution to safeguard the interests of the exchequer. There is a process involved under which queries are raised by the CAG following which the opinion of the particular ministry or department is obtained. Then the report is presented to Parliament and becomes its property,” he said.

 

Mr. Moily said the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) selects a particular paragraph in the report for discussion and then it becomes the right of a particular ministry to give a reply to the PAC.

 

To a question on the opposition onslaught on the Telecom Minister, he said, “In a healthy democracy you cannot find fault with the opposition. But this does not mean that a particular ministry is actually wrong.”

 

He said the CAG had raised similar queries when late Pramod Mahajan was the Communications Minister in the NDA government. “NDA did not volunteer to make him resign.... I have no memory of a minister who has resigned following a CAG report,” Mr. Moily said.