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Former telecommunications minister A Raja has refuted the contention of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC)’s draft report that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was “misled” into endorsing his first-come-first-served policy, which led to some firms being favoured while granting 2G telecom spectrum.
Raja has produced new evidence — a note dated January 10, 2008, by the private secretary to the prime minister to the effect that “PM says the DoT (Department of Telecommunications) has issued licences on Monday. That may be taken into account and the issues accordingly modified and submitted to him please”. Raja said this, as well as other evidence, proved Finance Minister P Chidambaram and then external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee were constantly informed of decisions in the allocation of 2G spectrum. And, the legal position of the government was consistently vetted by then solicitor general Goolam Vahanvati.
Complaining he wasn’t given a hearing by the JPC, Raja, in his 100-page letter to the JPC, said the prime minister and the government were kept informed of all decisions regarding the grant of 2G spectrum.
He claimed he had replied to the note, outlining the procedure for the grant of spectrum. It was only after this that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) reacted. On January 23, 2008, the private secretary to the prime minister wrote to Raja, saying the “PM wants this informally shared with the Dept. Does not want a formal communication & wants PMO to be at arm’s length please”.
This suggests though the prime minister was kept informed, he later distanced himself from the minister’s decision.
In his letter, Raja also asserts the solicitor general knew of all the correspondence between the prime minister, Mukherjee and the Cabinet secretary. However, whether the solicitor general knew of the way in which Raja rolled out the first-come-first-served policy for the grant of licences wasn’t clear.
In the draft JPC report, the solicitor general’s views suggest he did not know Raja had removed a crucial paragraph related to the grant of licences. Raja, however, asserts the solicitor general was kept informed. He adds his letter informing the solicitor general of the entire process was written to the telecom secretary, who then forwarded the information to the solicitor general.
“The solicitor general is also reported to have pleaded ignorance of the letter dated December 26, 2007, written to the honourable PM. It is beyond all imagination as to how he can do so, when the letter has been extracted (including a portion in bold typeface), and he has thereafter written his note,” said Raja’s letter to the JPC.
Raja’s letter is likely to lead to a furore when the JPC meets on April 25.
SP makes dissenting noises
Things seem to be heating up for the government on the JPC report on the 2G telecom spectrum issue. While the Opposition BJP has already made public its anger against the government on what it labels as the “Congress report”, UPA ally Samajwadi Party (SP) is gradually making dissenting noises. SP senior leader Ramgopal Yadav on Monday said it was “unfortunate” that former telecom minister A Raja had not been given an opportunity to be heard before the committee. Meanwhile, the DMK has moved a privilege motion seeking removal of P C Chacko as chairman of the JPC, alleging he had leaked the panel's draft report to the media. The BJP, too, by late evening had announced it was also moving a privilege motion against Chacko.
The SP is slated to hold its Parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday, where party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav is likely to take a stand on the issue.
Chacko told reporters outside Parliament, “I want to confirm that I have not taken anyone's name in this report. This must be someone’s imagination. They must have calculated who was in power or in office in a particular period. I have not named Atal Bihari Vajpayee or any other minister in the report. There is no such thing."
