he new Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India is likely to be Sindhushree Khullar, a senior bureaucrat whose name cropped up in both the Commonwealth Games and 2G controversies. The present CAG, Vinod Rai retires on 22 May. Khullar, a 1975 batch officer of the Union Territory cadre, is presently posted as Secretary, Planning Commission. If Khullar is appointed, she will be the first woman to assume the position of CAG.

Official sources say that the government does not want another CAG like Vinod Rai, who questioned the government's role in several scams. So the new CAG is being selected with utmost care and the candidature of Khullar, who is overseeing the crucial Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme in her capacity as Mission Director, is being pushed by a senior Cabinet minister.

Her appointment is expected to generate heated debate as she was summoned last year by the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), which is investigating the telecom scam. Khullar was the Additional Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs between April 2007 and November 2008, when the spectrum allocations were made. CPI's Gurudas Dasgupta walked out of one of the 2G JPC meetings in October 2012 accusing Congress member Shashi Tharoor of defending Khullar when she was being questioned.

Last year, Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, during his arguments to include the name of Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in the 2G scam, had requested the court to include Khullar as a witness.

Khullar was Secretary in the Ministry of Sports and had come in for criticism from both the CAG and the Shunglu Committee for mishandling the 2010 Commonwealth Games that were best known for large-scale corruption.