CAG Vinod Rai appears before JPC

Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai on Tuesday appeared before the JPC, a day after his former colleague sought to dismiss the presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore due to 2G spectrum allocation as a mathematical guess.

Rai, who appeared before the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) along with Deputy CAG Rekha Gupta, had written to Committee Chairman P C Chacko requesting the presence of R P Singh, former Director General, Audit (Post and Telecommunications) during his deposition.

Singh had told the JPC on Monday that his calculation in a draft audit report was based on inflation rate of seven years as the entry fee decided in 2001 was not revised in 2008.

He had told the JPC that the actual loss due to spectrum allocation was Rs 2,645 crore as against the Rs 1.76 lakh crore in the final report.

Singh had also said that he was compelled to sign the final report to which he did not agree in its entirety.

Rai and Gupta were present at the meeting venue at 11:00 AM and had to wait for over an hour as members held internal discussions on Singh's deposition and Chacko's briefing to the media.

A section of the members felt that Chacko's media briefing on Monday appeared to be biased against the CAG institution merely on the basis of remarks of a senior official.

The Chairman is learnt to have taken a plea that he was quoted out of context by a section of the media.