Tuesday, 23 April 2013 | PNS | New Delhi
Former Telecom Minister A Raja on Monday rubbished JPC Chairman PC Chacko’s clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram and submitted a 100-page report holding them equally responsible for decisions taken in spectrum allotment.
There was more trouble in store for Chacko as the BJP and DMK gave breach of privilege notices against him, and the Tamil Nadu party went further seeking his removal from the post of JPC Chairman.
In his submission Raja, who was denied permission for a personal appearance before the JPC by Chacko, claimed he took all decisions with the concurrence of Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram.
Accusing Chacko of denying him an opportunity to depose before the JPC, Raja said in the covering note: “Despite my repeated requests, you have decided not to permit me to depose before the JPC. In my letter dated April 9, I had specifically informed you that I was sending a detailed written statement. Even without waiting for my statement, you have prepared a draft report and also leaked it to the media. I would submit that this is not the way the JPC is expected to function.”
Raja also blamed Chacko for not keeping the promise of providing the copy of Attorney-General Vahanvati’s deposition against him. “I always had concerns about the credibility of the JPC, the procedure it is adopting and the report it will ultimately give, and my concerns appear to be justified,” said Raja, claiming, he can provide more documents to prove his innocence.
Sources close to Raja said, he had submitted all minutes of his meeting with Chidambaram on agreement with spectrum pricing and offloading of shares to multinational companies. He also produced the meeting details with the Prime Minister along with Chidambaram.
While Raja blamed Manmohan Singh in his submission, the BJP lambasted Chacko for the “malicious activity” of indicting former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the report.
Chacko defended himself saying he did not name anybody and described only what happened during the period and the post of the persons.
In the Lok Sabha, BJP leader Yashwant Sinha and DMK leader TR Baalu and in the Rajya Sabha BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad submitted breach of privilege notices.
“The way the JPC draft report was made public by none other than the JPC Chairman himself in order to condemn the NDA regime and hold us guilty, is a case in point that they are playing pure politics,” Sinha told the media after filing the notice.
Slamming the draft JPC report on the 2G scam for making observations on decisions taken during the NDA regime, BJP leader Jaswant Singh said it was absurd to find faults with then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
“I find it absurd and total travesty of facts to find fault with the functioning of a Prime Minister like Atal Bihari Vajpayee. I am not concerned about what the report has to say on my functioning as the then Finance Minister. This is not a document worth the paper on which it is printed,” he told reporters outside Parliament House. Singh, a former Finance Minister, is a member of the JPC on the 2G scam.
Asked why the NDA Government went ahead with granting concessions to telecom companies despite the issue being red flagged by then Telecom Minister Jagmohan and Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, Singh said a Prime Minister should not be “subservient”. “This is cherry picking of sentences and making the whole tree out of it,” he said.
The draft JPC report on 2G scam has questioned the NDA’s decision to grant concessions to telecom companies on licence fee despite protests by former Telecom Minister Jagmohan and says the then Government had to “forego” over Rs 42,000 crore in offering Migration Package to cellular operators.
The report alleged that this decision was taken by Vajpayee in haste. It also blamed NDA Ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha for providing concessions to telecom operators.
The DMK also demanded Chacko’s removal from Speaker Meira Kumar. “We have given privilege notice to the Lok Sabha Speaker against the leakage of the JPC draft report by the JPC Chairman. We will ask for Chacko’s removal as he has lost the confidence of members,” Baalu said, adding that the DMK members of the Committee would submit dissenting notes to the report.
Under attack from all quarters Chacko came out with a curious argument that he did not name Vajpayee. He said, his report mentioned the posts of persons only. “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 at a particular period. I have not named Vajpayee or any other minister in the report. There is no such thing,” said Chacko.
The JPC Chairman said he was in favour of a probe into leakage of the committee’s draft report.
“If they (Opposition parties) have moved such a motion, I am with it because we have always faced this problem. At every meeting, I used to tell my colleagues that please don’t allow classified information to reach the media. But despite that, it was being leaked,” he said.
“This time also, when the draft report was prepared, I took special caution that sealed covers were made and it was sent to everyone through special messengers. How can anybody observe more caution than this? If there is any confusion over leakage, then notice should be taken,” Chacko said.
Asked if he was guilty of leaking the report, Chacko said: “They (Opposition parties) have not blamed me. The matter is how it got leaked to the media. I am not accused for it.”
On whether the report would be adopted by the Committee, Chacko said: “I am not worried about numbers in the Committee. It is not a UPA or a Congress report, it is a Committee of Parliament. It is the responsibility of all the members of the Committee to get it through. I am confident that the report would be adopted.”
http://www.dailypioneer.com/todays-newspaper/raja-note-spills-beans-on-pm-pc.html
NEW DELHI, April 22, 2013
Raja links PM to all key 2G decisions
SHALINI SINGH
In his 112-page written statement to the JPC probing the 2G scam, former Telecom Minister A. Raja has said he kept Prime Minister Manmohan Singh informed of all 2G-related decisions and the latter agreed with him. File photoIn letter to JPC, he says he met Manmohan several times between November 2007 and July 2008 to discuss the issues
In his 112-page written statement to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probing the 2G scam, the former Telecom Minister and prime accused, A. Raja, has said he personally met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh several times between November 2007 and July 2008 — the period when the scam was perpetrated — to keep him informed of all 2G-related decisions, and the Prime Minister agreed with him.
On Page 72, while challenging the JPC’s draft report and the CBI’s allegations that Mr. Raja had “misled” the Prime Minister, he says: “This allegation has been made by the CBI without even recording the statement of the Hon’ble PM. On what basis do they say he was misled? I hope the JPC will not commit the same blunder; if they wish to draw any conclusion on this issue, it is mandatory to record my statement and the statement of the Hon’ble PM.” But the draft report has already reached that conclusion.
Mr. Raja then goes on to give details of his meetings, letters and conversations with the Prime Minister, several of which are not in the public domain.
Mr. Raja claims that apart from seven letters between November 2, 2007, and July 2, 2010, “I had several personal discussions with the Hon’ble PM on telecom issues throughout my tenure and particularly in the period from November 2007–January 2008.” He further provides occasions and venues where such meetings took place. “These would happen on the side of Cabinet meetings or separately at his office/residence.”
The Prime Minister has made specific statements on his discussions with Mr. Raja at a TV Editors press conference and in Parliament in February 2011, but has not disclosed either the occurrence or the details of these meetings, save one held among Mr. Raja, Mr. Chidambaram, and himself on July 4, 2008, seven months after the scam broke out.
Met PM a week before scam
Mr. Raja says that after his December 26, 2007 letter, which detailed the change in the first-come first-served (FCFS) policy, “I met the Hon’ble PM in the first week of January 2008, and this issue was again discussed, and he agreed with the proposed course of action of the DoT.” If correct, the meeting would have occurred within a week prior to the award of Letters of Intent for 2G licences on January 10, 2008, and supports documents that show that on the Prime Minister’s request of December 29, 2007, Pulok Chatterji, Secretary, and T.K.A. Nair, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, had discussed and endorsed Mr. Raja’s modification of the FCFS policy in PMO files through notings on 1, 6 and 7, January 2008. This was highlighted in a news report, ‘New papers show PMO analysed and agreed with Raja’s actions before 2G scam,’ published in The Hindu on March 18, 2013.
Continuing with his attack on the contention that the Prime Minister was misled, Mr. Raja says: “DoT officers were in touch with PMO regularly, without even involving me, as seen by the file notings of the PMO itself.” On July 24, 2012, CBI officials deposed before the JPC that they had not gone through the PMO files. The CBI stated that it approached a “Section Officer” in the PMO to check the “authenticity” of certain documents.
In the statement, Mr. Raja details instances and the importance of his face-to-face meetings with the Prime Minister and the then Law Minister, H.R. Bhardwaj, whose advice to take the 2G spectrum issue to the Empowered Group of Ministers (eGoM), had been rejected by Mr. Raja as “totally out of context.”
Citing “several interactions” he had with the Prime Minister and the Law Minister, he says: “If either of them had desired that the eGoM should consider this matter, they would have told me and I would have acted accordingly. However, neither of them ever made this suggestion, and rather they fully understood and endorsed my course of action.”
Pointing to his re-appointment as Telecom Minister after the 2009 election, Mr. Raja says: “…surely if he [the Prime Minister] felt that I misled him or offended him in any manner, my appointment would not have happened.”
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/raja-links-pm-to-all-key-2g-decisions/article4643417.ece?homepage=true
2G scam: A Raja gives this statement to Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC)
NDTV.com | Updated: April 22, 2013 18:59 IST
New Delhi: Former Telecom Minister A Raja, accused of executing a scam worth Rs. 1.76 lakh crore when in office has said that he did everything in consultation with the Prime Minister.
Here's a letter written by Mr Raja to the Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee probing the 2G scam:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/137324110/Raja-Letter-JPC
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/2g-scam-a-raja-gives-this-statement-to-joint-parliamentary-committee-jpc-357453
http://www.scribd.com/doc/137430238/2G-scam-Rajas-Written-Statement-to-the-Jpc
2G scam: Rajas Written Statement to the Jpc
http://im.rediff.com/news/2013/apr/22rajas-written-statement-to-the-jpc.pdf
2G scam: Raja points fingers at Dr Singh, Chidambaram
April 22, 2013 20:30 IST
Former telecom minister A Raja, the main accused in the 2G scam, was not allowed to appear before the Joint Parliamentary Committee that is looking into the alleged mishandling in 2G spectrum allocation.
In a 106-page statement sent to the JPC on Monday, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam [ Images ] leader has given a blow by blow account of what, how and why 2G spectrums were allotted at lower prices.
Read A Raja’s statement implicating the PM and the FM
Obviously, this is the stout defence of an accused who has been charge-sheeted in a major corruption case and is currently out on bail. This is not the whole truth.
Raja, who had spent 15 months in Tihar Jail after he was arrested in connection with the case in February 2011, says that nobody should suffer his fate.
Read what he says in his conclusion in the papers sent to JPC, which is headed by Congress leader P C Chako.
"This JPC has been constituted to examine all matters relating to allocation and pricing of Telecom Licenses and Spectrum from 1998-2009. I am submitting this Written Statement to the JPCin an attempt to set out the entire sequence of events and roles of various individuals in relation to the grant of UAS Licenses and allocation of 2G spectrum. I have had to do this because despite my repeated requests, the Chairman of the JPC has declined to permit me to depose before the Committee.
As the proceedings of the JPC have shown, the facts pertaining to the grant of licenses and allocation of spectrum can be appreciated only after taking into account the huge number of records and documents along with the oral testimonies of the hundreds of persons involved. At the end of the day, however, the story is simple: an effective and affordable nation-wide telecommunication system is crucial for the development of the country as a whole. Successive governments have realised this and thereby treated telecom as an infrastructure item. We have also realised that a properly regulated market-based approach was the best way to let the sector grow.
Accordingly, the primary aim of the government in the telecom sector was not to earn revenue, but to ensure effective and affordable services to the whole country. The idea was to keep entry barriers low and encourage more players to enter the sector. As the players competed with each other to add subscribers, teledensity increased and tariffs fell. At the same time, income to the Government, based on the revenue-share model, exponentially increased with an in-built indexation. This was a situation to the benefit of all stakeholders.
Spectrum is the core resource on which the entire wireless industry is built. A certain amount of spectrum had to be given to every operator, so that he could conduct his operations. At the same time, there had to be an efficient regulatory system that ensured that the operator used the allotted spectrum optimally, and the industry did not fall prey to spectrum hoarding. I attempted to achieve this by tightening the subscriber base criteria for allocation of spectrum over and above start-up spectrum. After tremendous opposition from the COAI, these criteria are now in place and are forcing the operators to use spectrum efficiently.
The unfortunate fact is that prior to my tenure, there was no transparency in disclosure of spectrum availability and allocation. This acted as a major barrier to entry of new operators and the GSM segment was virtually cartelised by the COAI. It is only as a result of my efforts that we were able to introduce new players and allocate spectrum to them, which was earlier lying unused. It is worth reiterating that not even 1 MHz of spectrum allotted by me came from the Defence Services or any other source: it was simply lying without being coordinated; a waste of a national resource. Why was it kept this way, and why new players were not allowed earlier? Why did companies that got licenses in December 2006 have to wait till January 2008 to get spectrum? I suspect that the answer is known to all.
The DoT was supposed to have been following the First Come First Serve system, but nowhere was it defined as to how FCFS would operate when there were two sets of licenses and two sets of applications. Both the Access Servises Wing and the Wireless Planning Co-ordination Wing have separately followed FCFS. This is what I explained to the Hon’ble PM in my letter of 26.12.2007: “The first come first serve policy is also applicable for grant of wireless license to the UAS Licensee”. The nuances of how the FCFS system would operate never became an issue earlier, since the DoT was processing only one application at a time – and since the applicants were all mostly COAI members, nobody protested against this method. This sequential processing obviously could not be done when a large number of new applications arrived, and I approved the DoT proposal to issue Letter of Intents simultaneously. After LOIs had been issued, it was also duly informed to me that they had been issued simultaneously.
Once LOIs had been issued simultaneously, there is no procedure, and really there cannot be a procedure, to refuse to accept the LOI compliances from an LOI holder and ask him to wait till some other LOI holder gave his compliances. The only logical and transparent method is to fix priority in order of receipt of compliances, which is what was done. All the applicants did in fact submit compliances on the same day or the next day, and none was prejudiced by this method. I further ensured this by the method of simultaneous allocation of spectrum, as far as possible. Thus, seniority became a non-issue and that is why no operator raised any grievance.
The decision to process applications received till 25.09.2007 and the issue of dual technology are relatively smaller issues. I approved the proposal to process applications received till 25.09.2007 because it was consistent with a harmonious reading of NTP-99, UASL Guidelines and TRAI Recommendations, considered along with the likely number of eligible applicants, likely availability of spectrum (including possibility of spectrum vacation), and past precedent of licensees waiting for spectrum allocation. I was in fact open to processing all the pending applications, but the thenS(T) was not in favour of this and hence this decision was taken. Insofar as dual technology was concerned, the Tata file was cleared as soon as they furnished the required No Dues Certificate and was not delayed for any reason. The question of their inter se priority with new applicants was never referred to me for a decision and was handled by the WPC internally.
The earlier procedure followed by the DoT was to allow several extensions of time to applicants to comply with eligibility conditions till issuance of LOI, and in some cases even after issuance of LOI. There is no power in the UASL Guidelines or anywhere else for this to be done, but it was being done. On what basis? Again, I suspect that the answer is known to all. After I took charge, I stopped this practice and directed that eligibility had to checked at the time of application and not subsequently. It is on the basis of this decision that the CBI has charged Swan Telecom and Unitech Group as being ineligible – and the twist in the tale is that I am supposed to have conspired with them! It is really absurd.
Today, after the intervention by the Supreme Court, cancellation of licenses and the attempted auction of spectrum, the telecom wheel has turned a full circle. There are no new operators, and no one is keen to enter the business. Tariff increases have already been announced, and are likely to be announced again. The telecom success story is finished.The so-called theory of conspiracy between me and some private operators has fallen flat after the combined investigation of CBI, ED and Income Tax Departments could not identify a single rupee of any bribe with me or even my extended family. Where has this left the country?
I took no unilateral decisions. Every major decision of mine was taken after consultation first with the DoT officers and thereafter with the Hon’ble PM, FM and EAM. All issues including entry fee, non-auction of spectrum, FCFS, processing of applications till 25.09.2007, etc., were personally discussed by me with the Hon’ble PM and the DoT proceeded only thereafter.
On several issues in this case, one can the view that the decision is a matter of opinion. Different options were available, and the DoT chose a particular option. I also accept that some other authority may have a different opinion. For instance, the Planning Commission says that telecom should not be seen as a source of revenue, but the CAG is concerned only with maximising revenue. These sort of institutional differences should be left to be determined by the Executive, which is of course answerable to Parliament. Instead, the CBI, the Supreme Court and various other bodies started imposing their opinions, leading to this current situation.
It must be understood that the CBI is the investigative and prosecuting arm of the Central Government. If the Hon’ble PM says in Parliament that there has been no loss to the exchequer, how can the Government stand by and watch silently while the CBI prosecutes me for allegedly causing loss to the exchequer? It is truly unbelievable and this attitude of the Government can perhaps only be explained as an exercise in blame-shifting or acting on political considerations.
The inter-institutional differences and aberrations mentioned above have been responsible for my personal liberty being sacrificed for fifteen months, though I do believe that I have emerged stronger from this. But all this could easily have been avoided if the Government had backed its Minister and presented the case properly before the Supreme Court.I can only hope that if this kind of situation recurs, no other Minister is made to suffer my fate. In conclusion, I would like to state that I stand by every decision that I took, and I am confident of emerging from this controversy with my name cleared by the judiciary and by history."
http://www.rediff.com/news/report/raja-points-fingers-at-dr-singh-chidambaram/20130422.htm?print=true