Joshi denies audit allegation

Accuses the government of destroying PAC and CAG

PTI | November 16, 2011



Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Murli Manohar Joshi today trashed as "baseless" allegations that he tried to expedite the CAG audit of the 2G spectrum allocation terming the charge as a "childish" attempt to tarnish the image of the two institutions.

"These allegations are totally false and baseless. It is an attempt with malafide intentions to malign the CAG and the PAC," he told reporters here.

His remarks comes in the wake of a fresh controversy that broke out with the surfacing of a letter from CAG official R B 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.

Joshi said he had made the phone call only to inquire about status of the CAG report. He said the CAG had assured the PAC in its meeting on January 28, 2010 that he would submit the 2G report within the next six months.

"The Committee has the right to ask the CAG where was the report he had said would be ready in six months," he said.

Pointing out that there were only two institutions -- the PAC and the CAG -- that keep a close watch on the government, he accused the UPA of destroying them.

"I protest these attempts very strongly. The UPA should not try to dismantle these institutions... Will you attack the institutions because they are unravelling corruption... This is constitutionally wrong and dangerous for democracy," he said.





 

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