'Coalgate': Government releases bits of CAG letter to deny TOI report

NEW DELHI: The government on Thursday sought to play down this paper's report of March 22 which stated that the Comptroller and Auditor General had estimated in its 110-page draft report that the coal ministry's decision to award 155 coal acreages without competitive bidding had led to "undue benefits" of Rs 10.67 lakh crore to private and public firms.

With the report creating a storm in Parliament, leading to adjournment of both Houses, the Prime Minister's Office issued a press release quoting from a letter the Prime Minister received from the CAG, Vinod Rai, "at 1.30pm".

The release quotes just one paragraph from Rai's three-page letter - that too only in part - to say "the details being brought out were observations which are under discussion at a very preliminary stage and do not even constitute our pre-final draft and hence are exceedingly misleading... In fact, it is not even our case that the unintended benefit to the allocatee is an equivalent loss to the exchequer. The leak of the initial draft causes great embarrassment as the Audit Report is still under preparation. Such leakages cause very deep anguish."

Officials in the PMO declined to release the CAG's full letter, but later in the day, TOI was able to access a copy of the original. The tone of letter is at some variance with what the press release had sought to convey. This paper is reproducing in full the PMO's press release where it quotes from the CAG's letter as well as the entire text of the CAG's letter to the PM.

(Read: The full text of CAG's letter to PM)

About 90% of the CAG's letter actually deals with the subject of news leaks. It starts by saying, "Naturally leakage of this draft report may attract an allegation that the 'CAG leaks'. It would console me immensely if the source of the leak is investigated... As I had stressed earlier in my letter to you on July 5, 2011, I am not in a position to repudiate such an allegation as the leak could have been from my office or from the department to which this draft report was made available on 28.02.2012." The "department" being referred to is the coal ministry.