CAG report on CWG: Govt to respond after PAC takes view

With the Opposition demanding the resignation of Sheila Dikshit after the CAG report on irregularities in CWG projects, Government on Monday said it will respond only after the Public Accounts Committee takes a view on the issue.

The Union Law Minister, Salman Khurshid, said the opposition “can target anyone they like” and for the Government “the Constitutional propriety... the Constitutional requirement is that if a report comes from the CAG, it has to go to the PAC.”

“The importance of the PAC cannot be undermined because somebody has in their wisdom taken this to be an important political stick to beat the Government. We respect the PAC and we would want the PAC to locate it and we can only respond and react once the PAC has taken a view,” he said.

Asked about the “sanctity” attached to the CAG report, the Minister said, “CAG report is a CAG report and there is no cause to use words like sanctity or lack of it.”

“It is a CAG report. We know the importance of CAG in our entire system. But we also know the limits which the CAG can go and that limit obviously examines not by the Government, but examine by the PAC.

“If the CAG report is acceptable to PAC, (it is) one thing. If it is not acceptable to the PAC, it is quite another thing. And what the PAC then points about the report or the material in the report, we have to wait for the PAC report in turn,” he said.