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War begins over CAG report on Rafale deal

The Congress accused the CAG of being "complicit in the irregularities'' in the Rafale fighter jet deal and said, "The bungling was happening at the highest level with his direct or indirect complicity and consent."

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Amid speculations that the office of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) can table its report on Rafale deal in Parliament soon, the Congress on Sunday claimed that CAG head Rajiv Mehrishi is "completely going to save the government" and himself as he was the finance secretary when the deal was struck.

The Congress accused the CAG of being "complicit in the irregularities'' in the Rafale fighter jet deal and said, "The bungling was happening at the highest level with his direct or indirect complicity and consent."

Rebutting the accusations levelled by Congress leader Kapil Sibal, Union minister Arun Jaitley tweeted, "After ten years in the government former UPA ministers still don't know that finance secretary is only a designation given to the senior most secretary in the Finance Ministry."

Jaitley explained that Defence Ministry files are dealt with by Secretary (Expenditure), and that the Secretary (Economic affairs) — the post held by Mehrishi — has no role in the expenditure files of the ministry.

Union minister Rajyavardhan Rathore, too, attacked the "morally corrupt" Congress for shifting the focus on CAG after doubting the independence of the Supreme Court and Election Commission.

Sibal in a press conference earlier on Sunday had charged, "CAG is going to completely save the government in its report. The whole deal was materialised in the supervision of Rajiv Mehrishi who was the then Finance Secretary. When the negotiations started the Ministry of Finance were part of it."

"The CAG cannot act against himself as there lies a conflict of interest in doing so and a fair investigation should be done in a corrupt deal," Sibal argued.

Sibal also alleged that the government knows beforehand what would be in the CAG report which is likely to be tabled on Monday.

The Congress also served a memorandum to Mehrishi raising the issue of conflict of interest to the audit of 36 Rafale Aircraft deal reminding the CAG that "cardinal principle of law is that no one can be a judge his own cause."

In the memorandum, the Congress also questioned Mehrishi's "silence" in the entire matter as "intriguing" when the name of CAG was being dragged to mislead he Supreme Court.

Urging CAG Mehrishi to recuse himself from presenting the CAG report in the controversial Rafale deal as it will add as another big scam, Sibal warned that government officials for trying to show excessive loyalty towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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