A Supreme Court bench of Justices KS Radhakrishnan and Vikramjit Sen modified a Delhi high court order giving the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) power to do a statutory or special audit of private telecom companies accounts.

Instead, the bench decided that the CAG should have the right to scrutinise the accounts of private telecoms companies to make sure that the government was getting “legitimate share” from the Telcos’ use of natural resources such as spectrum.

The case began in 2009 when the CAG looked into the books of Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular. [Financial Express | Judgment]