Amidst a high-pitched BJP campaign for a JPC probe into the 2G spectrum allocation scam, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai is all set to appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament. The PAC is scrutinizing the sensational CAG report which claimed massive irregularities in telecom dealings. Rai, will depose before the PAC on Monday.

Interestingly, PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi, a senior BJP leader, has started going about his job of examining the CAG report about alleged corruption in the allocation of spectrum despite his party’s rejection of a PAC scrutiny that it has dubbed ‘inadequate’.

PAC has already begun its work, looking at different aspects of the CAG report that has quoted the mind-boggling sum of up to Rs 1.76 lakh crore as the amount of loss to the exchequer incurred due to the wayward handling of spectrum distribution among various telecom players.

The government has turned down the demand for a JPC, insisting that it is not in a position to investigate the criminal aspects of the deal, which the CBI is better equipped to do. The Congress has called the JPC demand a ploy to politicize the probe.

PM Manmohan Singh has already announced his willingness to appear before the PAC to explain his position on the whole issue . “I have nothing to hide,” he said at the Congress plenary session last week.

Rai will be the first major figure to face the PAC in connection with the telecom scam. If the proceedings of the PAC probe gain momentum , it will come as a setback to the BJP’s meticulous build-up for a sustained campaign against corruption in high places.

Some PAC members are asking for the scrutiny to begin from 2001. This is exactly what the Congress had demanded during the Parliament logjam to prove that the previous NDA government had been equally responsible for the alleged irregularities.