‘Report not indictment of Raja’
Following an all-out attack by the Opposition on the 2G spectrum controversy, Union law and justice minister M. Veerappa Moily came out in defence of telecom minister A. Raja on Friday.
He said that the report of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on 2G spectrum allocation cannot be called an indictment of Mr Raja, as claimed by opposition, as the report had not yet been finalised.
“You cannot call it an indictment. It is not a final report. Technically no one can call it indictment,” Dr Moily stated and added that he had not seen any minister resigning following a CAG report.
He pointed out that the CAG had raised similar queries when the late Pramod Mahajan was the communications minister in the NDA government.
“The NDA did not ask him to resign. I don’t remember any instance when a minister has resigned following a CAG report,” Dr Moily said.
However, he clarified that the Comptroller and Auditor General report has “weightage” as it was a constitutional body.
“The CAG report is actually a query raised by the institution on a particular ministry,” the minister clarified. “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,” the law minister stated.
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