A daylong drama over an alleged Rs 10.6 lakh-crore scam in coal allocation took a new twist on Thursday, with Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai coming to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's rescue by playing down the findings of his own office.

A report published in The Times of India on Thursday quoted a CAG draft report on the ‘Performance Audit of Coal Block and Allocations’ as having found “undue benefit” extended to companies by allotting them 155 coal acreages without auction between 2004 and 2009.