The much-talked about and speculated upon report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General on the shameful manner in which 2G Spectrum was allotted to certain corporate entities, many of them shell companies, at a throwaway price by then Telecom Minister and now disgraced DMK MP A Raja, has been made public by the Government, obviously with the intention of blunting the Opposition's relentless and ever-sharpening attack. But if the idea of placing the report in Parliament was to try and put a lid on the scandal that is threatening to tar the Congress and has raised a big question mark over the Prime Minister's ability to exercise his authority over wayward Cabinet colleagues, then it is unlikely to work. The CAG's report is a damning indictment of a venal politician high on bluster and low on scruples who was given charge of an important Ministry and who converted it into a cash-and-carry counter, corrupt bureaucrats who willingly colluded with their political master for reasons that do not require elaboration and greedy corporates that think nothing of violating laws in their lust for windfall profits. The report also exposes, though not for the first time, two important aspects of public life in India: The system of checks and balances which we believe exists lies in a shambles; and, the regulatory mechanism without which the private sector becomes a happy hunting ground for carpet baggers and buccaneers is more often than not an anaemic institution staffed with time-serving babus for whom a regulator's job is a post-retirement sinecure, a reward for services rendered in the past. Last, though not the least, the report shows the vice-like grip which lobbyists have come to wield on Ministries and institutions of the state by resorting to the expedient means of greasing palms to subvert policy or get it tailored to suit the requirements of their clients.
Audit reports are never laudatory, nor are they expected to be. Often the CAG's office gets obsessed with obscure rules and regulations that have been rendered meaningless in the post-liberalisation phase. It's also true that the CAG's office is known to needlessly nit-pick and highlight inconsequential details if only to demonstrate that it does a thorough job of combing files. But it would be uncharitable to describe the CAG's report on the 2G Spectrum scam as an exercise in picking holes and no different from any of its other reports. If anything, the 2G Spectrum report belongs to the same category as the CAG's devastating indictment of the Rajiv Gandhi Government for signing the flawed Bofors deal which involved payment of bribes to individuals and entities (it was later proved that the primary beneficiary was the Italian middleman Ottavio Quattrocchi known for his proximity to the Congress's first family). The Opposition, as with the Bofors bribery scandal, this time too is demanding the setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to look into charges of corruption. Irrespective of whether or not that demand is conceded by the Government, it is expected to initiate action in accordance with the findings contained in the CAG's report. Indeed, if Mr Manmohan Singh wishes to mend the tattered image of a Prime Minister who chose not to stop his Minister from pulling off a Rs 1.76 lakh crore scam, he should take the initiative without any delay.
