Government can impeach CAG if it thinks coal scam report is wrong: Murli Manohar Joshi

BHOPAL: Stating that it was wrong for the UPA government to challenge CAG report on coal allocation issue, BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi today said the government could impeach the auditor if it believed the report was not correct and he had overstepped his brief.

"Just criticising the CAG and saying he had overstepped his brief has no meaning...it can impeach CAG as the Constitution provides for impeachment of a CAG," Joshi told reporters here.

Joshi, who is chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, also said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had set a wrong precedent by stating that the CAG report would be challenged.

Joshi said the job of the CAG was not to frame a policy but to see the manner in which it was implemented.

The senior BJP leader said the present UPA government at the Centre had failed on a number of counts and it would be erroneous on its part to believe that the people would not punish it for its lapses.

He said natural resources of a country were not the property of any government. They belong to the people and the government has no right to deal with it as per its whims.

CAG, in its report submitted recently, had estimated that private companies which were allotted coal blocks would make a "windfall gain" of over Rs 1.85 lakh crore. The government, however, has rejected the finding of the report.