The government today transferred Santokh Singh, legal advisor to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), considered a close aide of former communications minister A Raja, to the law ministry.
Sources in the know confirmed the development.
Singh was associated with the controversial affidavit filed by DoT in the Supreme Court which said all decisions taken on the issue of new unified access service (UAS) licences and the allocation of 2G spectrum to new operators had the concurrence of the prime minister.
The affidavit resulted in the prime minister’s name being dragged into the 2G spectrum case in the Supreme Court.
The affidavit was filed by DoT in response to a PIL filed by Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy seeking the sanction for launching prosecution proceedings against Raja and others involved in the alleged scam.
The decision to transfer Singh came just few months ahead of his superannuation. He was with DoT for over four years and advised the department on several important issues relating to 2G spectrum allocation and 3G spectrum auction.
Singh is the second senior official who has been transferred, after R K Chandolia, former economic advisor.
SC reserves verdict
The Supreme Court today reserved its verdict on a plea seeking a direction to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for grant of sanction to prosecute former communications minister A Raja in the 2G Spectrum case.
A bench of Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly reserved the verdict after concluding the hearing on the petition filed by Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy.
The bench asked Attorney General G E Vahanvati to place before it the number of matters relating to sanctions pending before the competent authority in various government departments in a week.
Vahanvati said he would check from various departments and inform the court.
