CAG should keep in mind Supreme Court's opinion on auction: Government

NEW DELHI: Armed with Supreme Court's opinion, the Government today appeared to caution the Comptroller and Auditor General ( CAG) asking it to keep in mind the court's view that auction is not the only way to allocate natural resources when it does audit.

However, in matters like allocation of coal and lignite, it said it has no choice but to auction because of the law in this regard.

"The point is that the underlying premise of the CAG reports, the implied benchmark against which loss or presumptive loss was judged, was auction.

"And to an extent the opinion of the Supreme Court says that the auction is not a constitutional mandate or an enshrined constitutional principle in disposing of natural resources, I sincerely hope that all constitutional authorities in future will bear that in mind while discharging their constitutional function", Finance Minister P Chidambaram told a press conference.

Under attack for nearly two years in the wake of CAG report on 2G spectrum auction that estimated a presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore and the recent report on coal blocks allocation, government made use of the apex court's opinion yesterday to make its point.

Flanked by Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal and Law Minister Salman Khurshid, Chidambaram said the whole problem was people pointed a finger at the government and said the policy was illegal and irregular.

"That criticism is neither based on law nor on logic. We have never defended irregularities or illegalities. Investigating agencies and the courts of law will hold people to account if they committed any illegalities," he said.