Govt uses apex court gun to fire at CAG

Chidambaram, Sibal & Khurshid use 5-judge ruling to rebut 2G, other allocation charges underline policy is executive prerogative

Three senior ministers in the Union cabinet blasted the basic premise of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India that it could estimate losses to the exchequer by questioning government policy.

Aided by yesterday’s Supreme Court reply on the Presidential Reference on allocation of resources, the trio – finance minister P Chidambaram, telecom and human resource minister Kapil Sibal and law minister Salman Khurshid -- said the CAG and other constituional authorities should heed what the SC had said. The ministers, all with a background as lawyers, said the CAG and others should take note of the ruling that an auction was not the only method for allocating natural resources."I sincerely hope that all constitutional authorities in future will bear in mind (the observations of apex court) while discharging their functions," said Chidambaram.

All three quoted from the SC opinion to stress that deciding on a policy was the exclusive domain of the government.

The CAG had said faulty allocation of spectrum and coal blocks had resulted in huge loss to the exchequer.

"The implied benchmark against which loss or presumptive loss was judged (by CAG) was auction...The Supreme Court says that auction is not a constitutional mandate for disposing of natural resources...I think, in a way, all of us are in a learning process", Chidambaram said.

Giving its opinion on the Presidential Reference arising out of its earlier verdict cancelling telecom licence allocations, a five-judge constitution bench of the apex court had said the common good was the touchstone for any policy and there could be more than one method adopted to achieve the objective. Khurshid said future decisions would be taken in the light of the SC judgment. Chidambaram said the government had accepted the earlier SC order that 122 licences were to be cancelled and spectrum released thereto auctioned but declined to estimate the money that could then accrue to the exchequer.

We have maintained that if there was any irregularity or illegality in implementing policy, it must be corrected and those responsible be held to account,” he said.

Quoting from the SC observation, Sibal said auction of natural resources was not a constitutional mandate but an economic choice. However, he declined to comment on his ‘zero loss’ statement made earlier on the allocation.