Just two days after Congress leaders held a Press conference saying no CAG report on pricing of Rafale jets has been shared with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the CAG has sent a draft report on Rafale deal to the Ministry of Defence for its comment.

Highly placed sources said that the CAG has asked the Ministry of Defence to revert within four weeks on the draft report. The draft report was sent to the Ministry of Defence two weeks ago. However, the report is unlikely to be tabled in the ongoing Winter Session of the Parliament.

The controversy erupted over the CAG report on Rafale ever since the Supreme Court mentioned about this while giving clean chit to the Government.

The senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, who is the Public Accounts Committee chairman, accused the Government of misleading the apex court. “The Government lied in the Supreme Court that the CAG report was presented in the House and in the PAC, and PAC has probed it. The Government said in the Supreme Court that it (the report) is in public domain. Where is it? Have you seen it?” Kharge, alleged.

The Congress has been making allegations of corruption in the 36 aircraft contract saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi favoured his industrialist friends by giving them offset contracts worth over Rs 30,000 crore.

According to CAG officials, once a CAG report is submitted to the President of India for approval, the Government decides on the date and time of its tabling in Parliament.  After tabling in Parliament, CAG reports are sent to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is headed by an Opposition leader, for evaluation. The CAG has been conducting an audit of the Rafale deal for the last year and has gone into its pricing, bids from competitors and comparative pricing of other fighter jets available globally.