Seeking to corner the government over the CAG report on coal block allocation, the Bharatiya Janata Party is understood to have reached out to key UPA constituent Trinamool Congress.
The DoT also clarified that all queries have been duly and promptly replied in time. The Director General Audit, Post and Telegraph in continuation of their earlier queries has issued Draft Report on July 19 to DoT for comments.
The apex auditor is busy preparing a report on the Air India-Indian Airlines merger and modernisation of airports through public-private-partnerships, both carried out during the previous term of the United Progressive Alliance government.
The list includes CAG's request dated July 2, 2012 for information on award of contract for laying of a 1,395-km pipeline by Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure Ltd for shipping KG-D6 gas from east coast to the west.
In 11 out of 29 coal mines successfully e-auctioned, a number of qualified bidders in the e-auction stage were from the same company/parent subsidiary company coalition/joint venture, CAG said.
The Congress, which was not a petitioner before the apex court, wants the Rafale deal to be referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee to go into the price arrived at by the BJP government versus the one negotiated by the previous UPA regime, as also how billionaire Anil Ambani's group with virtually no experience in manufacture of fighter jets was selected as an offset partner for the deal.
Rejecting Team Anna's allegations of corruption against him, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday declared he will quit public life if the charges on coal block allotments are proved.
Watch Live! Jaiswal and Chidambaram's press conference on the coal scam
The civil aviation ministry initiated and then made a mess of the merger of the erstwhile Indian Airlines with Air India, according to a Comptroller and Auditor General report.
The Comptroller and Auditor General has pulled up leading public sector undertakings for glaring lapses in balance sheets, saying assets were overstated by Rs 377.43 crore (Rs 3.77 billion) in four Navratna companies including SAIL.
The comments by a former official of the Comptroller and Auditor General over the report on 2G spectrum allocation on Friday kicked up a row with Congress President Sonia Gandhi suggesting that the Bharatiya Janata Party had been exposed while the government demanded answers from Parliament's PAC chief M M Joshi over his alleged role.
The company's accounts were audited by CAG as its shareholders include public sector banks.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Murli Manohar Joshi on Sunday said that a Comptroller Auditor General inquiry should be conducted into expenditure made during Maha Kumbh Mela at Allahabad.
A CAG report severely criticises the movie certification body for fabrication of documents and showing bias while issuing film certificates.
Observing that the "CAG is not a munim (accountant)" the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea challenging the Comptroller and Auditor General's power to conduct performance audit of controversial allocation of coal blocks by the UPA government.
Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party paralyses Parliament on the allocation of coal blocks by the Centre, its own government in Chhattisgarh had come under attack from Comptroller and Auditor General for allocating coal blocks at 'abnormally low' rates that led to a loss of over Rs 1,052 crore.
CAG has said the government suffered a presumptive loss of Rs 1.86 lakh crore (Rs 1.86 trillion) in coal block allocations during 2004-2008, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held the coal portfolio.
The United Progressive Alliance is expected to put up a united face on Wednesday to counter opposition demand for resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the Comptroller and Auditor General reports on coal block allocation and two other issues.
According to a 2010 CAG report on warship building, this year the navy will have just 44 per cent of the destroyers it needs; 61 per cent of the frigates; and 20 per cent of its requirement of corvettes, reports Ajai Shukla.
According to an interim report of the government audit body, the loss should have been Rs 8,589.1 crore (Rs 85.89 billion), instead of Rs 5,551 crore (Rs 55.51 billion) as has been shown in the account books, sources said.
The coal-gate involving Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in allocation of the coal mines to private parties is set to put Parliament on fire beginning its monsoon session on Wednesday as the CAG report is ready for presentation which will provide ammunition to opposition to fire at the government for the massive scam.
The report was tabled by deputy chief minister S K Modi in the state assembly.
CAG in the audit report on land issues in three IT parks also said 64% land given for IT development remained unutilised since 1990
The Supreme Court on Friday granted six weeks time to Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) to respond to the final CAG report which found alleged irregularities including in payments made to the contractors on drilling of D6 wells at the Krishna-Godavari basin.
Government auditor Comptroller and Auditor General has started a comprehensive audit into the role of armed forces, Coast Guard and Colaba administration in land allotment to the scam-tainted Adarsh Housing Society.
Audit scrutiny of expenditure on foodgrains (Rs 37.4 crore) and cash dole (Rs 44.59 crore) revealed delay in distribution, doubtful purchase of material, doubtful distribution of foodgrain and non-submission of detailed contingent bills.
Reacting to Comptroller and Auditor General reports on defence preparedness, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday said that the army has been given World War II vintage "toy-guns" to fight nuclear powers, an issue the government is "diverting" attention from by raising the differences between the Army chief and the defence minister.
Even as her party demands the prime minister's resignation, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj has asked the government to announce cancellation of the controversial coal block allocations and institution of an independent inquiry.
Government is considering a proposal to make Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) into a multi-member body, a move that came under sharp criticism from the opposition and civil society.
A bench comprising Chief Justice S H Kapadia and justices K S Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar directed the CBI to conduct the probe on the basis of the survey reports provided by the petitioner, CAG report and the National Institute of Rural Development.
The government on Friday asked the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to suggest ways to curb its rising subsidy bill on food, fertiliser and petroleum products without hurting the targetted population.
The Comptroller and Auditor General on Friday pulled up the previous NDA government for diversion of funds and incurring unauthorised expenditure of Rs 63.23 crore (Rs 632.3 billion) for the 'India Shining' media campaign.
After the flop 2G spectrum auction that yielded only Rs 9,407 crore, government and the Congress on Thursday questioned the Comptroller and Auditor General's estimated loss of Rs.1.76 lakh crore in the spectrum allocation of 2001, drawing fire from the opposition. Information and Broadcasting minister Manish Tewari led the government attack by asking CAG Vinod Rai why the spectrum auction had not yielded anything close to the loss it had estimated.
The CAG, in its much-awaited report tabled in Parliament on Thursday, did not say if the capital expenditure for KG-D6 being raised from $2.4 billion proposed in 2004 to $8.8 billion in 2006 was unjustified or inflated.
The Comptroller and Auditor General can do a performance audit of production sharing contracts
Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh took a dig at Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai on Thursday asking why does he not stop leak of reports from his office, a day after the latter deprecated the "brazenness" with which the decisions were being taken by the government.
Describing these as non-working companies, the CAG in its latest report on the state tabled in the Maharashtra Assembly stated that since no purpose may be served by keeping these units in existence, the state government needs to expedite closing down of these non-working PSUs.
Lashing out at the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday for its stand on the coal controversy, the Congress alleged that there was a clear similarity between the anti-Bofors campaign and the present one on the coal blocks allocation. "Between 1985 and 1990, there was a campaign after the CAG report on Bofors against Rajiv Gandhi, with foreign journals also publishing articles. There is a similar pattern to it from 2009 to the present times," said Digvijay Singh.