Raja drags Vahanvati into 2G scandal

Former telecom minister A Raja on Tuesday dragged Attorney General G E Vahanvati into the 2G spectrum controversy, while denying the forgery charges levelled against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in court.

He continued to target Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the second day in the court over "dereliction of duty" for not constituting a group of ministers (GoM) on the 2G issue. Also, the Tata Group came under attack once again for being spared by the CBI. Vahanvati, the then solicitor general, had approved the press statement changing the cut-off date for receiving 2G applications in October 2007, Raja said in court on Tuesday. Raja, in jail since February, told judge O P Saini that Vahanvati had been defending the press release in various judicial platforms before he became the prosecution witness.

The letter approved by Vahanvati had two points: the new cut-off date for 2G applications and simultaneous issuance of Letter of Intent (LoI) to companies, Raja said. He admitted to having made a change in the press release after it was approved by Vahanvati. As the minister, he said he put in a new stipulation saying issuance of LoI would be on a first come, first served basis. In the case of the two simultaneous applications, the person who complied with the LoI conditions first was to get the licence first, according to the former minister.

Raja elaborated that such an issue did not arise earlier because there were fewer players. The number increased following the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s no-cap policy, he reasoned. “Who's sin is it? Trai's, not mine. I cannot go against a statutory body,” Raja said. He said in 2003, when Arun Shourie was telecom minister, two invoices had come simultaneously. At that time, the applicant who complied first, although he had applied second, was given priority. “If I have done a procedural error, then so has Shourie,” Raja said.

AT THE PM
The jailed DMK MP hit out at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yet again. On the issue of constituting a group of ministers (GoM) on spectrum allocation, Raja told the court the law ministry's report was sent to Singh. The PM, being a senior, could have easily referred the matter to a GoM, he argued. “It was the PM's judgment not to have a GoM. By that standard, he (PM) too could be held guilty of conspiracy and dereliction of duty for not forming a GoM .” He further alleged that all those who were signatories to his policy decisions had been made witnesses and only he was being prosecuted.

Raja also said that home minister P Chidambaram, finance minister at the time of the 2G spectrum allocation in 2007-08, would have to come as a witness in this case. Asserting that he did not mean to implicate the PM or Chidambaram, Raja said, “I am defending myself and not accusing anything against anybody. I am not after anybody.”

Targeting Tata for the second day in court, Raja asked CBI to investigate the Group on the 2G controversy. Referring to the Unitech-Tata land deal, he said he did not know why that deal did not fructify, but if he was accused of favouring one of those parties, then the other should also be probed by CBI.

Besides Raja, DB Realty managing director Shahid Balwa and three jailed Reliance Telecom executives – Hari Nair, Gautam Doshi and Surendra Pipara--will be interrogated by the income tax department from tomorrow.