CAG report no indictment: Law minister

Senior party leader and law minister M Veerappa Moily on Friday became the first Congress leader to speak up in support of telecom minister A Raja.

Senior party leader and law minister M Veerappa Moily on Friday became the first Congress leader to speak up in support of telecom minister A Raja.

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He claimed the comptroller and auditor general’s report, which has severely criticized the way the telecom ministry under Raja went about the sale of 2G spectrum in 2008, could not be termed an ‘indictment’ of the minister since it was only an interim report, not the final one.

Hitting back at the BJP, which has been insistent on Raja’s resignation, Moily said the CAG had raised similar queries about similar sales by the late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan during his tenure as telecom minister during the NDA regime. But Mahajan was never asked to resign.

“You cannot call it an indictment since it is not a final report,” Moily said.