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Talk Point: Was former CAG Vinod Rai a ‘vigilante’, or was he India’s ‘conscience keeper’?

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Andimuthu Raja, the former telecom minister who was recently acquitted in the 2G scam trial, has alleged in his new book that the entire episode was an attempt by the opposition to bring down the UPA II, in which former CAG Vinod Rai was complicit.

ThePrint asks: Is Vinod Rai a ‘malicious vigilante’ as A. Raja says, or is he the ‘nation’s conscience keeper’?


Raja’s book will read like salacious gossip, and has no credibility

Prashant Bhushan
Lawyer and activist

To say that Vinod Rai, the then Comptroller and Auditor General, was a vigilante or to abuse him, to my mind is malicious and absurd in itself. The CAG took the correct view and submitted a comprehensive report on the 2G spectrum as well as coal allocation cases.

Much has been said about the estimate of loss being wrong, but the estimate was based on the basis of prices at which the 2G spectrum had been auctioned. That was a legitimate basis for calculating the losses. All the things that the CAG has written in his report have been endorsed by the Supreme Court.

The order of the special judge is totally wrong. I believe that will soon be addressed.

Raja will necessarily claim that the report belongs in the dustbin since he has been indicted in that report about the manner in which he conducted the spectrum allocations. Firstly, he sold it at 2001 prices, that too seven years later, when the demand and prices had gone up exponentially, at least six times the 2001 price.

Secondly, Raja gave it on first-come-first serve basis. Then he went on to tamper with the allocations. He didn’t comply with the terms of allocation. Moreover, he allowed benaami firms to get a second license.

Raja was clearly guilty, and his acquittal is totally wrong.

This book will not impact the credibility of the office of the CAG. The general belief about Raja’s guilt will prevail. Nothing he says in the book will carry any credibility. The book will be read like salacious gossip is read. It will not get any serious traction among serious people. I certainly do not intend to read it.

The BJP hasn’t shown any partisanship towards Rai. His reports are correct, and he is good at his job. Of course, the BJP has used his reports politically, but then again, any other political party would have done the same.


The only beneficiaries of this manufactured set of lies were Narendra Modi, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley

Randeep Singh Surjewala
Member of Indian National Congress party

The entire 2G scam was based on malicious slander and manufactured lies. It raises serious questions about the role played by the then Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai, the efficacy of his report and its intent.

The presumptive loss theory was neither used before, nor thereafter, as a benchmark for calculations made by the Comptroller’s office. The report was considered so unreliable that the CBI never consulted it while prosecuting in the case.

The entire conspiracy of falsehood is evident because of three things.

One, Rai said there was presumtive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore. Later, his deputy, R.P. Singh claimed that the loss was Rs 2,645 crore only, and that he was forced to inflate figures. The CBI said the loss was ₹ 30,984 crore. Then, the SC-monitored CBI came to the conclusion that there was no scam or loss. This itself tells the story of a sinister conspiracy.

Two, using this presumptive loss theory of the CAG, Parliament was held to ransom by the BJP. The only beneficiaries of this manufactured set of lies was Narendra Modi, and the two leaders of the opposition at that point, Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj. This clearly indicates who benefited politically from this conspiracy to tarnish images, soil reputations, and bring disrepute to the entire country.

Thirdly, the present government rewarded Rai by appointing him the Chairman of the Bank Bureau. Conclusions now need to be drawn by every sane person to realise who the kingpin of this entire conspiracy was. It is left to the wisdom of the people to draw appropriate conclusions in view of the court verdict.


Vinod Rai is neither a vigilante nor a messiah

Arvind Mayaram
Former finance secretary

Now that the court’s decision is here, there is nothing more to be said about the 2G scam. The court’s order is clear and detailed.

When the scam happened, I was the Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, looking after telecommunication. The Ministry of Finance recommended that it would be better to auction the entire spectrum. As the Finance Ministry, we had a bias towards revenue maximisation.

However, the Telecommunications Ministry believed that it would be better to continue with the first-come-first-serve basis, which had been the practice since the allocation of the first spectrum in 2001 in larger public interest.

This was a policy choice made by the government. The guiding principle was that the greatest number of people should benefit from it. In the late 1990s, incoming phone calls would cost Rs 19/minute. Hardly anyone had a cell phone. After the Vajpayee government introduced it, revenue sharing telecommunication services spread rapidly among all classes. That was policy choice then. In fact, the first-come-first-serve principle was introduced during that period.

We must understand this clearly, that in the end, the auction money that was recovered from the operators by the government was obviously to be recovered by from the consumer.

While making policy choices the government can either maximise revenue or maximise the benefit to people. It was considered to be in the interest of the people that the first-come-first-serve policy was implemented.

Auditors do not have the authority to challenge policy decisions made by the government. They can comment on whether it is fully followed or not, but cannot tell the government how to make policy. The CAG office—I will not name particular people—overreached in the 2G case.

This adversely affected the economy. The government went into litigation with several foreign companies. The banking sector is still reeling under the impact of the 2G scam. Most of all, the reputation of the country was in shambles. To foreign investors, it seemed like India was a banana republic, where decisions made by the government can be challenged by anybody. The credibility of the country was being questioned.

Vinod Rai is neither a vigilante, nor a messiah. These are two very extreme positions. The CAG, in my opinion, should not have stepped into the realm of the executive. Whenever any institution, the CAG, or the judiciary, steps into the realm of the executive, a messy situation arises. That’s what the 2G case became, a very messy situation.

Compiled by Deeksha Bhardwaj

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7 COMMENTS

  1. MR VINOD RAI FORMER COMPTROLLER OF OF INDIA AUDITED 2G LICENSING & FIND OUT A LOSS TO TUNE OF Rs 1,76,000 CRORES THAT HE WAS UNABLE TO PROVE IN PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE. EVEN AN ORDINARY BUSINESS MAN KNOWS:
    “IF SOMEONE HAVE SUFFERED LOSS IMPLIES THAT OTHER ONE MUST HAVE GAIN.”
    HERE NOBODY GAINED SO NO LOSS IS THERE. SUCH ACTION OF PUT A QUESTION MARK ON THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF CAG OF INDIA.
    HENCE CBI COURT VERDICT SUPPORTED IT.

  2. A line in a song in an old Sivaji Ganesan movie (Tiruvilayadal) translates into English like this: “he kept changing the accounts in his ledger; but God’s account (of his actions) never lied, so he fell (into retribution)”. Andipatti Raja is guilty has hell; and hell is where he is certainly headed. It is not about Vinod Rai, or his Rs 1.76 lakh crore loss estimate. Spectrum could be sold cheap or even given away free–the logic that it will benefit consumers is sound. But this man advanced the cut-off date, so that only a few who were tipped off about it bagged the spectrum, which they sold it for handsome profits to others. This means, that ultimately the telecom operator did not get spectrum cheap, he bought it for a high price from the market. The beneficiaries were not consumers, but those who arrived at Raja’s office sooner, and Raja himself. If prices of telephony are down today, it is because of the cut-throat competition in the market. The argument, “see? your calls are cheap, therefore Raja’s action was good” is patently stupid. Calls are cheap because of the cut-throat competition in the market. Telecom companies are NPAs today because they paid high–not low–prices for spectrum that they bought in the market, from companies that were favoured by Raja. If they had paid low for spectrum, today’s low call prices would not be bleeding them, and the banks wouldn’t have lost their money.
    Raja has been acquitted on technical grounds. The essence of the judgement is, no matter what Raja did or did not do, show me that he took bribes from the telecom companies who bought spectrum under FCFS. That is not easy, a seasoned crook knows how to keep his tracks covered. Raja may or may not be convicted in higher courts, but he cannot escape divine retribution. He should remember the line from Tiruvilayadal:
    “Ettu Kanakka Maathi Maathi Ezhudhi vechchaaru –
    Eesan Potta Kanakku Maaravilla Poi Vizhundhaaru!”

  3. It is a triangle conspiracy authored by Subramanya Swamy, Murali Manohar Joshi and Vinod Rai. We know about the first two and their political background. Then we should drive to a conclusion based on the formula that if a=b, b=c and then a=c

  4. It is unfortunate that the current government is after easy money ,may it be from the petroleum products or from the auction of telecommunication operations. It doesn’t think of general public of India other wise it would have passed on the benefits of the cheap international crude oil to the poor public of India. What is the government for ? To make a profit out of the auctions and let the poors fight the inflation out of this profit making,on their self. Nation becomes rich and poors are getting poorer. Alas ! We never dreamt of this kind of developing country where rich and powerful populace taste the fruit of this fragile development and poors dying their death with sweet dreams of virtual development assured to them by the jugglers in the power.Long live poors of India to see the development of the sovereign of India.long life is the only hope to them to see the development if comes to them in real terms.

  5. CAG Vinod Rai was rightly shocked by the cavalier manner in which scarce natural resources were being given away at one sixth the fair price for spectrum and virtually free of cost for coal. If the intention was that concessional pricing of inputs would result in more affordable calls or power, that object was defeated when licences were monetised by the allottees, who had no relevant experience in the domain. Even the mechanics of allotment, whether it was FCFS or decisions of the screening committee, there were sufficient distortions / aberrations that led to criminality being alleged and, in some cases, proved in a court of law. 2. The apex court would have thought through very deeply the commercial / contractual complications before it decided to rescind both sets of allotments and restore these priceless resources to public ownership. As far as Shri Vinod Rai is concerned, one is certain he would have done exactly what he did had the NDA been in power and UPA in the opposition.

  6. /This book will not impact the credibility of the office of the CAG. The general belief about Raja’s guilt will prevail. Nothing he says in the book will carry any credibility. The book will be read like salacious gossip is read. It will not get any serious traction among serious people/

    After reading the above statement i thought bushan already read the book. It became a shock to me to read the next line.
    /I certainly do not intend to read it./
    wow. What a objective application of mind!

    CAG is assuming about loss, bushan gives judgement about a book he is/was/will gonna read. then he says
    /The general belief about Raja’s guilt will prevail/
    Again he goes to general belief.

    Pls accept Rajas offer to open debate. We poor people will came to know about the truth.

  7. /I certainly do not intend to read it/

    Good Prashant Bhushan. keep your ears and eyes closed. you did not even bothered to listen about raja’s arguments.
    I feel ashamed about myself because in the past i went with public perception and not bothered about raja’s arguments. All in the nation did the same.
    Raja may be wrong but why you people are denying him the baisc right to be heared of his side of arguments.

    BTW Why cant you accpet raja’s offer to debate in open forum.

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