Lifting the veil

This is a wrangle that refuses to die down. Two years after a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on the 2G spectrum allocations left the Congress scrambling for cover, the outbursts of former CAG official R P Singh, then Director-General (Post & Telecommunication), CAG, has opened up a fresh can of worms.

Singh, who added yet another chapter to India's biggest-ever scam, has accused senior BJP leader and Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Murli Manohar Joshi, of influencing the final CAG report that was presented in Parliament on November 16, 2010.

The revelations by Singh, who was also the officer behind CAG’s 2G spectrum audit, has given a new turn to the debate on the presumptive loss figure of Rs 1.76 lakh crore. According to Singh, the formula adopted by the CAG to arrive at the figure was the one suggested by Joshi himself.

According to the report submitted by Singh, the loss figure stood at a much lower Rs 2,645 crore owing to indexation. He had expressed his disagreement with the presumptive loss figure of Rs 1.76 lakh crore in May 2010 and also differed with the method adopted for the computation of loss.

Singh has reportedly maintained while deposing to the JPC on 2G that the report was initiated without any guidelines and that he was categorically asked to issue an amended report, which was not prepared by him.

Singh has also claimed that Joshi was constantly in touch with CAG officials and had expressed interest in knowing the audit findings even while the exercise was underway.

Documents in exclusive possession of TSI do give credence to Singh's claims. A letter dated July 13, 2010, by R B Sinha, Director General (Report Centre) stated that he received a call from P K Jain, senior PS to the Chairman PAC Murli Manohar Joshi, saying his boss wanted to speak to him.

Sinha writes in the letter that Joshi told him that "there was tremendous pressure on him from parliamentarians, media etc about the examination being done by the PAC in respect of  'recent development in the telecom sector including allocation of 2G and 3G spectrum' and that if probe is further delayed, the executive would get time to cover up the issues."

The letter further stated: "He further stated that in view of the tremendous interest, heightened anxieties and pressure on him from all concerned including media, it would be appropriate for the PAC also to submit its report soon after the CAG's report is submitted
to the President during the monsoon
session."

At a PAC meeting held on June 30, 2010, with then Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla, one of the three formulae adopted by the CAG to calculate losses for selling 2G spectrum on a first-come-first-serve basis, was indeed mooted by Joshi. When Chawla told Joshi that the loss to the government on account of not auctioning the 2G spectrum could not be assessed, Joshi said: "Even a high school student can do it. We have been taught this. You sold me something at ‘x’ price. A part of it, I sold it at price ‘y’. ‘Y’ minus ‘x’ is what I have gained. Now, say, this is a certain percentage of the total. Raise it to 100 per cent and I get the total amount of the prevailing prices. That would have been the value which the government or the country would have received."

A noting by Shubha Kumar, Principal Director at the CAG office corroborates this claim. In the noting dated July 12, 2010, Kumar says: "We have also used another method for projecting losses as all PAC members felt in the meetings held in June-July 2010 which were attended by us and DG (P&T)'s officers, that huge capital infusion into telecom companies could be directly attributable to spectrum allotted."

However, the CAG has its own defence. "There is nothing illegal about PAC sharing details with the CAG," says a highly-placed official in the CAG office. Clearly, the scam has intra-CAG skullduggery as its trademark. Insiders say that ``RP Singh could have had his own axe to grind with Rekha Gupta (former deputy CAG)."

Singh's revelations have led to a rash of conspiracy theories about his motives. Singh, however, told this magazine that they were based on documents that were sourced under the RTI Act. Interestingly, the RTI application that sought details of correspondence between Singh and the CAG office in relation to the 2G audit, landed straight on his table.

Though the controversy has now acquired heavy political overtones, the truth behind Singh's outbursts could well lie in the politics, angst and bickering that are common within government offices and CAG is no exception. It is no secret in the office of the CAG that Rekha Gupta was an extremely hard task master. CAG sources reveal that Rekha Gupta might have "rubbed R P Singh the wrong way".

Sources say that before Gupta and Singh joined the Delhi office of the CAG, they happened to be colleagues in Chandigarh. Singh, a resident of Delhi and father of four daughters was expecting the family of a prospective groom, an IRS official, to visit them in Delhi. Though Gupta initially agreed to grant leave, it was rejected hours before Singh was to leave for Delhi. The outcome: the marriage did not work out. 

These behind-the-scenes machinations have become relevant with demands for greater transparency in CAG affairs. Interestingly, the CAG told the government that the Constitution did not provide for an oversight role for the PAC on the CAG's audit planning. Why then was Joshi allowed to persist for details, is something that only the CAG can answer best.