New Delhi:
The Supreme Court today observed that the national auditor or CAG is not just a
munim or accountant.
The comment was made as the judges rejected a Public Interest Litigation or PIL challenging the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on coal, which said that by allocating coal fields without transparency the government has allowed private firms to benefit by upto 1.86 lakh crores. The man who filed the case described himself as an economist and said the CAG's findings were faulty and the report should be declared invalid.
The Supreme Court today said that "the office of CAG is not a
munim's office ..it's a constitutional body." The judges said that if the CAG has exceeded his brief, it's upto Parliament to debate and resolve the problem.
The reports of the CAG have exposed the government to allegations of deep-ridden graft. For telecom and coal, the auditor said that an auction should have been held to ensure fair play while allocating spectrum and mine leases. The CAG estimates that the telecom scam cost the country 1.76 lakh crores, and the coal swindle another 1.86 crores.
Last week, however, the Supreme Court said that while it stands by an earlier verdict that demands spectrum must be auctioned, other natural resources do not have to be distributed by a competitive bidding process. The court said that in cases where development or public good is the goal, maximising revenue - enabled by an auction - need not be given top priority. This verdict brought instant relief for the government, which has been arguing that auctioning coal blocks would have made coal more expensive and stalled development of industry and the economy. Senior ministers have urged CAG to pay heed to the verdict, arguing that the judgement proves the auditor's calculations are problematic.