2G scam a raja PM singh PC guilty

Former telecom minister A Raja continued to defend his actions in the 2G scam, alleging that he sought the opinion of the three highest government authorities, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, then Finance Minister P Chidambaram and then Solicitor General Goolam E Vahanavati before awarding licences to private companies.

Raja’s lawyer Sushil Kumar put forth the argument in the court of special judge O P Saini on Tuesday to counter the CBI’s primary charge of conspiracy and cheating against Raja.

Kumar argued that if the three top government representatives were aware of Raja’s actions ahead of the award of 2G licences, then how could he be the only accused in the ‘conspiracy’?

Bringing the focus back on the Prime Minister, Kumar said Manmohan Singh did not make any suggestions to constitute a GoM to examine the spectrum allocation issue. “In such case, PM Singh could also be held guilty of conspiracy and dereliction of duty for not forming a GoM to examine the spectrum allocation issue,” he said.

Raja’s counsel claimed his client had written to the PM on his decisions, and that the latter should not have approved if he thought there was anything wrong with the minister’s actions. “I wrote to PM Singh on background of all my decisions... So if he saw anything wrong in these decisions, he could have sat over it,” he said.

Claiming that he had only done what was required of him as telecom minister, Raja said, “Conspiracy is hatched only within a close- door. Whatever I have done are recorded on files. There are documentary evidences available in the department of telecom (DoT) files.

“The maximum I could be held responsible for is misconduct because whatever  decision I took was in discha­rge of my official duties as telecom minister,” he said.

He further explained why the conspiracy charge is not maintainable with the available evidences on record.

Kumar told the court that Raja joined the telecom ministry in May 2007. The TRAI recommendation for ‘no cap’ on number of applicants in a telecom circle came in August 2007 based on a reference made by the DoT before Raja joined the ministry. Of the two telecom companies under the scanner, Swan had applied for licence in March 2007 while Unitech did so in September that year.

However, the CBI had clubbed all four points into a conspiracy, without explaining how they are linked, Kumar argued in court.

“The dates of decisions taken to hatch conspiracy are not matching up. All the decisions are not linked up,” he said. “In such circumstances all those who have got 2G licences should be made accused,” he added.