New Delhi:
Amid doubts that there are deep divisions within the government's top auditing agency over its report on the 2G scam, former Director General, Audit, RP Singh's deposition before the the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) began on Monday.
Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India Vinod Rai is also scheduled to appear before the JPC later in the day.
The parliamentary panel asked Mr Rai to depose after NDTV exposed the angry letter he had written to the Prime Minister to protest against statements made by him in his meeting with editors.
In the same letter, Mr Rai had written to the Prime Minister that in 2008, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) under the then Telecom Minister A Raja not only ignored the Ministry of Finance which had questioned the sanctity of continuing with spectrum price determined in 2001 without current valuation, but also did not follow the PM's own suggestions.
During an interaction with editors in June this year, the PM had said, "Never has a Comptroller and Auditor General held a press conference as the present CAG has done." Dr Singh had also said, "It was not right for the CAG to go into issues which are not its concern," adding that "it wasn't the CAG's business to comment on policy issues".
Mr Rai subsequently wrote to Dr Singh in July, saying, "We follow the mandate given by the Parliament and we have not transgressed our mandate." Defending the CAG's office, he said, "The CAG had never commented on policy issues."
The two auditors will depose separately to avoid UPA members stalling the proceedings.
NDTV has learnt that the man who conducted the audit, RP Singh, could have been coerced into signing the final report.
Documents accessed by the channel reveal how Mr Singh, then principal auditor and Director General of Post and Telecommunication, was kept away from the final drafting of the report and was barely given any time to see it.
Mr Singh, incidentally, had valued the loss to the national exchequer accruing from the 2G scam at Rs. 2,645 crore (on the basis of inflation costs) which was at great variance with and much less than "presumptive losses" of Rs 1.76 lakh crore figure pegged by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai. The discrepancy, which came to light through a letter written by Mr Rai which was accessed by Right to Information (RTI), immediately sparked speculation of the CAG hiking the 2G loss estimate and having over-ruled its lead auditor.
Sources have told NDTV that Mr Singh was just given 15 minutes to read the final draft before it was sent to Mr Rai.
In an internal note, dated October 20, 2010, the deputy CAG Rekha Gupta is said to have told a junior that the report "is to be put up by tomorrow evening positively...R P Singh has been asked to sign the last page..."
The note also shows that Mr Singh was not given a hard copy of the final report for his perusal but was called to Ms Gupta's office to sign it. Referring to Mr Singh, Ms Gupta, according to the note, reportedly said, "Let him read the final version here (meaning her own office) if he wants."
The revelations again bring to the fore speculation of how Mr Singh could have been pressurised to formally give his nod to the final CAG report which, with its estimated loss of Rs. 1.76 lakh crore in the telecom scam, had provided a major impetus to the political storm that had engulfed the government.
It could also lead to a fresh furore as both Mr Rai and Mr Singh are due to appear in front of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) that is looking into the 2G scam. The parliamentary panel - comprising members of different political parties - has seen Congress MPs led by Sanjay Nirupam questioning the credibility of the CAG report on the scam.