No pressure from PAC chairman on 2G audit: CAG

CAG Vinod Rai today rejected reports that there was pressure from Parliament's Public Accounts Committee Chairman Murli Manohar Joshi to expedite audit work of 2G spectrum allocation and said no findings were ever shared with the PAC.

CAG Vinod Rai on Wednesday rejected reports that there was pressure from Parliament's Public Accounts Committee Chairman Murli Manohar Joshi to expedite audit work of 2G spectrum allocation and said no findings were ever shared with the PAC.

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"There was no pressure from any quarter on this Department with regard to the audit of the allocation of 2G spectrum.

"CAG has always taken a very stern view of any attempts of pressure or interference in the discharge of its constitutional duties and functions," an official release from the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India said.

The release comes in the wake of a fresh controversy that broke out with the surfacing of a letter from CAG official RB Sinha to Deputy CAG Rekha Gupta on July 13 last year which suggested that Joshi had called up a CAG official to press for expediting auditing work into spectrum
allocation.

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