New Delhi, Aug 10 - India's official auditor has said his office was yet to ratify the Rs.45,000-crore ($9-billion) capital expenditure claimed by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries for tapping natural gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin.

'We are still to complete the audit of Reliance Industries' books. We don't have the mandate to audit the books of a private company. That is why the books were not made available to us,' Vinod Rai, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, told IANS.

'We are in touch with the government to complete the audit at the earliest,' Rai said, even as officials at the audit office said a letter had been written to the oil ministry to get relevant documents and responses from Reliance.

The remarks clearly run contrary to a statement by Director General of Hydrocarbons V.K. Sibal that the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India had already carried out the necessary audit on the matter.

The remarks also assume significance in the wake of the Anil Ambani group alleging that Reliance Industries had gold-plated -- or grossly overstated -- the capital expenditure for the production of gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin.

Subsequently, the Director General of Hydrocarbons -- the regulator and custodian of the country's oil assets -- had said that the capital expenditure was above board since the official auditor has duly looked it into the same.

'The CAG team has carried out the audit work. A CAG audit has recently been completed,' Sibal had said in a statement, while seeking to give a clean chit to Reliance Industries.

'The idea of gold-plating betrays a lack of knowledge of business economics.