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Raja courts censure, but why is PM unmoved?
J Gopikrishnan | New Delhi
When, on Friday, the Supreme Court refused to intervene in a Delhi High Court order that had found violations in the 2G spectrum allocation by Telecom Minister A Raja, it became clear that the time had come now — if not earlier — for the Prime Minister to act against his “honoured” colleague. The dubious allocation had resulted in a loss of more than one lakh crore rupees to the public exchequer.
Manmohan Singh, who often preaches ‘zero tolerance’ to corruption, has to take a final call. Even before the courts came into the picture, Raja’s decision had come under scanner of the Central Vigilance Commission. A CBI probe is currently on after the CVC found gross violations in the allocation.
The Supreme Court verdict by Justice B Sudershan Reddy and Justice SS Nijjar not only exposed Raja’s wrongdoings but also his attempt to make a mockery of the judicial process. Observers see a back door attempt to coerce the complainant into withdrawing litigation against the Telecom Ministry. There were two cases in the Delhi High Court challenging the spectrum allocation, and they hung like the sword of Damocles on the Telecom Minister.
One was a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Arvind Gupta challenging Raja’s dubious first-come-first-served policy in allotting spectrum/licences to telecom operators. The second case was filed by telecom operator STel against Raja’s order to reverse the cut-off date (last date) of application from October 1, 2007 to September 25, 2007, through a mere press note released on January 10, 2008.
The press release, which was issued at 2:45 pm, also asked the applicants to remit the fee for spectrum/licence on that day itself between 3:30 pm and 4:30 pm through demand draft. It is still a mystery how the companies arranged demand drafts of around Rs 1,500 crore within an hour. As a result of the sudden change in the cut-off date, STel, which had applied for all 22 circles, got licence for only six circles. It started operations in January this year in three circles — Himachal Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa — with eight lakh subscribers.
Raja apparently panicked after the CBI began investigation in October 2009 after the CVC ordered a probe. To his fortune, though, within two months Gupta withdrew the case at the last stage when the High Court was constrained to observe, “Spectrum was sold like cinema tickets”. During this period, STel also won its case in the High Court before a single bench headed by Justice GS Sistani.
Rejecting DoT’s appeal, the then Delhi High Court Chief Justice AP Shah also upheld the verdict favouring STel. In both benches of the high court that had heard the case, Raja presented a misleading affidavit claiming that he had received the Prime Minister’s concurrence in allotting spectrum, including the change in cut-off date. Shockingly, both affidavits which dragged the Prime Minister into the court proceedings were drafted and vetted by Attorney General Goolam E Vahanvati, who personally appeared in most of the hearings of this crucial case to save Raja.
After The Pioneer’s expose of the false affidavit, the DoT deleted the passage claiming the Prime Minister’s concurrence in the Supreme Court appeal. Raja sensed further danger in the case when Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy impleaded in the matter three weeks ago. To prevent Swamy’s intervention, the country’s top legal brains advised Raja to persuade STel into withdrawing the case.
The Telecom Minister - through a junior DoT official - issued a two-line order to STel on Friday, March 6, after office hours on closure of services “due to security concern”. No show-cause was served. This was the first time the DoT issued a service discontinuation order without giving a show-cause notice.
According to highly placed sources, STel owner C Shivashankaran tried his best to counter Raja’s plans but failed. On March 7 and 8 (Saturday and Sunday) his attempts to contact the Prime Minister through Congress leaders and bureaucrats in PMO, were blocked.
On March 8, Shivasankaran decided to surrender before Raja. STel officials, who reached Raja’s residence for truce with company letter pads, were forced to sign the prepared compromise draft, which was then presented to the Supreme Court by Attorney General Vahanvati. Sadly for Raja, all the manoeuvring came to a naught, with the apex court refusing to provide him any relief.
STel is the only firm that wrote to the Prime Minister, offering a whopping figure of Rs 16,000 crore for a pan-India licence. But the Prime Minister, who had on November 2, 2007 ordered Raja to stop spectrum allocation, maintained silence on the letter. He continued with his silence even when the Telecom Minister issued licenses at a cheap price of Rs 1,500 crore, fixed back in 2001. The spectrum/licences were issued in 2008 at price fixed in 2001, when only four million subscribers existed. In 2008, the subscribers level had crossed 300 million.
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