EX-CAG chief Rai should quit, demands Moily in LS

NEW DELHI: A demand for former CAG chief Vinod Rai to quit all posts was made in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, hours after a court ordered acquittal of all the accused in the 2G spectrum scam case which was based on the government auditor’s findings during his tenure.

Rai heads the Supreme Court-appointed four-member panel of administrators to run the affairs of the BCCI and implement the court-approved recommendations of Justice RM Lodha panel.

He is also the Chairman of the Banks Board Bureau, which has been set up to advise the government on top-level appointments at public sector lenders and ways to address the bad loans problem among other issues.

While senior Congress leader M Veerappa Moily said Rai should tender an apology to the country, resign from all posts he is holding and return all the awards, Trinamool Congress leader Saugata Roy sought that the former CAG chief should be probed on the issue.

The two leaders made the statements while participating in a debate on the second batch of Supplementary Demand for Grants in the Lok Sabha, on a day when a special court acquitted all the accused in the 2G spectrum scam case including former telecom minister A Raja and DMK MP Kanimozhi.

A 2010 report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, when Rai was its head, had estimated that there was a presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer in the allocation of the 2G spectrum during the then UPA regime.

“Mr Vinod Rai in anxiety gave an estimated loss in the 2G ... Now I think he has been awarded...you (NDA government) have awarded him. I think all those awards he has to return. He has to resign from all those posts and tender an apology to the country,” Moily said. He also demanded that the government bring a resolution rejecting the CAG report as “the nation’s economy or projections in the investment profile to the outside world have been severely damaged because of such irresponsible reports given by then CAG.”

“Bring a resolution rejecting the CAG report...then you pass a resolution rejecting the report of CAG and say this is a report of CAG not my report,” Moily said. Observing that a CAG report on direct taxes was raising “troubling questions”, the Congress leader said “they say according to that report, CAG has come to conclusion that there have been persistent and pervasive irregularities.”

Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambi Durai was on the chair when Moily was speaking.

During the same debate, Saugata Roy (TMC) said on Thursday was “a very bad day” for Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. “All the accused in 2G scam were acquitted. This was the on which Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Jaitley had built up their case about corrpution against the UPA government but now seems the whole edifice has collapsed,” he said.

“Mr Jaitley tried a face saving statement but the face will not be saved and I want to see the face of the former CAG who said that Rs 1.76 lakh crore was presumptive loss. He is now getting a fat salary from Board of Cricket Control of India ... he should come before the court and be investigated himself,” the TMC leader said.