Confrontation With Governments
As a part of his duty, Rai has many a times raised questions on faulty policy making of several state governments and central government run by Congress led United Progressive Alliance and BJP led Governments in Chhattisgarh and Gujarat. He had slammed the central government in the allocation of spectrum for 2G mobile use to telecom operators, conduct of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, running of its flagship rural employment guarantee scheme and the spending by Reliance Industries in an oil block. He had also pointed out improprieties in allocating coal blocks, and central government's overt generosity to GMR in an airport project and Reliance Power in a power plant. CAG slammed govt of Goa for forest policy delay, Haryana govt for loss of over 1,000 crore (US$170 million) due to "deficiency" in imposing taxes like sales tax on goods, stamp duty and registration fee in land deals and taxes on vehicles in more than 4,000 cases in a year.
There are certain times when ministers of ruling Congress coalition government criticized CAG. Minister of state in PMO, V. Narayanasamy said "CAG has no authority or right to comment on the policy of the government but unfortunately it has questioned its authority, which is totally unwarranted and against the mandate given to them". However CAG Vinod Rai defended his position by stating at an Economic Editor’s Conference in 2011 “I am making it clear that I do not think the CAG is exceeding its jurisdiction, because the basic responsibility of the CAG is to identify if there is any lapse.” and challenged the government to identify the specific breach of mandate.
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