Congress members corner Joshi in PAC on meeting with CAG officials

Congress members in Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today sought to corner its Chairman and senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi over his reported meetings with CAG officials during which he allegedly tried to influence the audit report on the 2G spectrum scam.

The issue is learnt to have been raised at the meeting by Congress member Sanjay Nirupam, who wanted to know whether such discussions took place at Joshi's residence.

Nirupam is understood to have sought details of Joshi's meeting with the CAG officials and the letters exchanged between them.

As the exchanges between members appeared to generate heat, Bhratruhari Mahtab (BJD) sought to point out that the Committee had authorised Joshi to hold discussions with the CAG officials with regard to the 2G spectrum allocation.

At this point, the Congress members said if this was the case the minutes of the meetings should have been kept and later shared with the Committee.

R P Singh, former director in the Comptroller & Auditor General's office, had claimed that Joshi had contacted the auditors and tried to push the report on irregularities in allocation of 2G spectrum.

Joshi's draft report on 2G had blamed the government, including the PMO for the radio-wave scam. Speaker Meira Kumar had returned the report to PAC as Congress members had raised objections and refused to adopt it. For the past two years the report is part of the panel's "unfinished agenda" and pending adoption.

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