2G scam: Government auditors to testify at parliamentary panel

New Delhi: When the government's auditor declared that the telecom scam had cost the country 1.76 lakh crores, the swindle turned overnight from a two-year-long hum into a deafening clang.

That was in November last year. The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) forced the resignation of A Raja, now in jail for having masterminded the telecom scam.

Now, the Comptroller and Auditor General, Vinod Rai, has been asked to testify for Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (he volunteered to meet the committee in a letter sent this morning). Headed by BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, the committee has members of different political parties. A Congress MP, Sanjay Nirupam, has questioned the credibility of the CAG report on the scam.

Recently, documents have surfaced through the Right to Information Act (RTI) which show that while the auditor was calculating the losses caused by the scam, there were differences within the department that were allegedly suppressed.

The committee will also reportedly meet with RP Singh, who was junior to Mr Rai and conducted the audit. Mr Rai had suggested that the presumptive losses from the telecom scam were in the range of 2000 crores, but was over-ruled.