The former telecom minister’s allegationshave set the stage for an attack by all the accused in the 2G spectrum scam.As the Government prepares to defend itself in court and in Parliament, the CBI

struggles to establish the money trail.

After almost six months in jail number 2 of Tihar,when former telecommunications minister A. Raja finally got a chance to speak, he took noprisoners. On July 25, in the packed confines ofJudge O.P. Saini’s trial court in Delhi’s PatialaHouse complex, he said Prime Minister Manmo-

han Singh and then finance minister P. Chidambaram had fullknowledge of the sale of fresh shares which allowed the 2Glicencees to bump up their valuations. More importantly, if thiswas the crime then why were Tata Tele and S Tel who actuallysold equity to NTT Docomo (26 per cent sold for Rs 12,300crore) and Bahrain Telecom (49 per cent sold for Rs 1,000crore) not being charged? The prime minister, thundered Raja,knew of all his decisions and he had a sheaf of lettersexchanged between them in 2007-08 to prove it.

Even as a shaken government got Kapil Sibal, Chidam-baram, Ashwani Kumar and Salman Khurshid to offer clarifi-cations, former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura demandedthat then finance secretary D. Subbarao be on trial because hehad decided against revising the entry fee of Rs 1,658 crore for2G licenses. He also said that former Telecom Commissionmember-finance Manju Madhavan should be named as anaccused as she had chosen to keep quiet on the entry fee.Behura entered DOT on January 1, 2008, replacing D.S. Mathur,who retired the previous day.

The strategy is clear. As the trial in the multi-crore 2G scamunfolds and Parliament begins on August 1, all the accusedcurrently in jail without trial or bail will be taking the battleinto the Government camp. One hundred and twenty two li-censes were given out of turn even as 575 applicants queuedup. The accused will be naming and shaming ministers andbureaucrats, demanding that all nine beneficiaries of the 2Gspectrum sale be implicated. They will, like Raja, be offeringdocumentary evidence to corroborate their charges. In orderto prove culpability, the Government will have to prove that il-legal gratification was given to Raja and the other accused forgranting licenses. Establishing this money trail is not going tobe easy in the Supreme Court-monitored investigation andtrial. A cocky Raja knows that.

Reliance Telecom’s three top executives—Gautam Doshi,

By Sandeep Bamzai

Chidambaram told the prime minister thatthe companies had diluted their shares to att-ract FDI, which did not mean they were sellinglicenses.When sale of equity does not amountto sale of licence, there is no question of earn-ing profit. How can there be any corruption?

Etisalat buying a stake in Swan Telecomand Telenor’s stake in Unitech Wireless wascleared by the finance minister, in the presenceof the prime minister. Let the prime minister deny this.

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RAJA ON MANMOHAN SINGH

RAJA ON P. CHIDAMBARAM

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A.Raja puts PM in dock SHAKES GOVERNMENT

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Cover story SPECTRUM SCAM

AP Photo

AP Photo

PANKAJ NANGIA

IACCUSE

Surender Pipara and Hari Nair—appear to have been targeted for be-ing associates and allegedly abettingDB Realty’s Shahid Balwa to create thelegitimacy for a licence. Privately, theywill tell you that they are victims of ajudicial thirst for big names.

The government’s legal strategyteam, comprising telecom ministerSibal, law minister Khurshid, AttorneyGeneral Goolam Vahanvati and SolicitorGeneral Rohinton Nariman, is puttingtogether the defence for what promisesto be an eventful monsoon session ofParliament. “Raja has the right todefend himself and he is using that as alicence to attack whomsoever he feels.The media is giving him credence andinflaming passions,” argues a topGovernment strategist.

Over the next several days, Behura,who was additional secretary in theMinistry of Environment and Forestswhen Raja headed it, will be followedby Raja’s private secretary R.K.Chandolia, Swan/Etisalat DB Telecom

MD Balwa, DB Realty’s Vinod Goenka,Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra, Doshi,Pipara and Nair. Then it will be the turnof those accused in the Kalaignar TV

chargesheet led by Kanimozhi and MD

Sharadd Kumar. At the trial, 132witnesses mentioned in the CBI’S80,000-page first chargesheet will bepitted against the 17 accused. Specialpublic prosecutor Uday Lalit will arguefor their prosecution.

No one appears safe. Raja has ac-cused the prime minister, home minis-ter and attorney general. His defence issimple: that if everyone knew what washappening, then why is he the only onein jail? He wants Chidambaram to bemade a witness. He says, “Etisalat buy-ing stake in Swan and Telenor doing thesame in Unitech Wireless was clearedby the finance minister in the presenceof the prime minister. Let the primeminister deny this.” CBI has accusedRaja of criminal conspiracy, forgery forthe purpose of cheating, using as gen-uine a forged document, cheating and

Raja wrote directly to ManmohanSingh of the illegal acts he wascommitting in advance of the

January 10, 2008, scam through twoletters on November 2, 2007, and oneon December 26, 2007. He illegally ad-vanced the cut-off date, changed thedefinition of first-come, first-served,and only processed a handful of appli-cations by shunning auctions and giv-ing away spectrum in 2008 at 2001prices. He did not deviate from whathe had informed the PM. The pressreleases of January 10, 2008, are con-sistent with Raja’s letters to the PM.w Manmohan Singh not only knewwhat Raja was doing but also knewwhat was wrong. In spite of the TRAI

recommendations of August 28,2008, which the PM, Kapil Sibal andMontek Ahluwalia have used in theirdefence, the PM wrote in no uncertainterms that auctions or indexationwere the only way forward, in his let-ter of November 2, 2007. This meansthat the PM knew how to stop thescam, and the TRAI recommendations,as Raja interpreted them were notbinding on the Government since thePM’s letter of November 2, 2007 camethree months after the TRAI’s recom-mendations of August 27, 2007.w File notings of January 11, 2008,and January 15, 2008, show the PMwanted to distance himself. “The PMwants this informally shared with thedepartment and does not want a for-mal communication and wants thePMO to be at arm’s length,” they read.

Why did Chidambaram keep quietwhen his finance secretary D. Subba-rao went on record, objecting to howRaja was pricing the spectrum?w He was a member of the Group ofMinisters (GoM) on spectrum whenDayanidhi Maran was telecommuni-cations minister and its terms of ref-erence were changed on December 7,

The prosecution’s case is uncertain and vague.The CBI has no specific answersto some fundamental questions. For instance, presumptive loss has no place inlaw, no one can be convicted on this basis.The moot question of definition ofthe terms ‘eligibility and ineligibility’ in Clause 8 of the Unified Access Serviceguidelines is still not understood by CBI and a belated attempt is being madenow after putting 17 people behind bars and filing an incomplete chargesheet

against them.The record shows that as late as the third week of July 2011,the CBI was seeking clarifications from the secretary, Ministry of

Corporate Affairs.The very meaning of ‘eligibility’ is being sought.The implications of the term may finally be discovered to be suchthat may render Swan Telecom eligible as on January 2008. Onthe definition of ‘associate’, I will demonstrate that both on March2, 2007, and January 10, 2008, Swan was eligible for the licence.

The CBI is not the authority on company law, it is merely drawinginferences. Let us also understand there were nine beneficiaries onJanuary 10, 2008. Only two, Swan/Etisalat DB and Unitech

Wireless, have been charged.The other seven are free. I am not go-ing to argue that the other seven should be caught, but I will prove

conclusively that Swan was ‘eligible’.

as told to his lawyer Majeed Memon

2006, to drop spectrum pricing. Surelythis was done with his knowledge.w Subbarao wrote to DoT secretary D.S.Mathur on June 6, 2007, asking thatDoT reconsider including spectrumpricing in the Terms of Reference (ToR)of the spectrum GoM headed by PranabMukherjee. Mathur refused in a letteron June 15, 2007, stating he haddiscussed it with Chidambaram.w At a briefing of the cabinet secretaryon November 20, 2007, Subbarao wastold letters of intent (LoI) were beingissued to some new entrants/dual tech-nology holders. Subbarao wrote a let-ter firmly objecting to giving awayspectrum at Rs 1,658 crore. This lettercould not have been written withoutChidambaram’s approval. Mathur, oninstructions from Raja, refused toincrease the price of 2G spectrum.

Mukherjee, external affairs ministerbetween 2006-08, was chairman of theGoM on spectrum, and had evidenceabout spectrum prices being manipu-lated. He is also the last person to have held a meeting with Raja and per-mitting him to proceed with theJanuary 10, 2008 issuance of LoIs.Mukherjee has not once denied hehad asked Raja to proceed with LoIs

granting 2G spectrum.w Spectrum pricing was part of the ToR

issued on February 22, 2006, but afterlobbying by Maran, it was removed bythe PM and a new ToR issued onDecember 7, 2006. So, Mukherjeeknew spectrum prices were beingmanipulated. w The final letter from Raja to theprime minister on December 26, 2007,which lays out the change in the defi-nition from ‘date of application’ to‘date of payment/compliance of LoIs’,states that Raja held a meeting withMukherjee before writing the letter.The fact that Raja said Mukherjee en-couraged him, which has never beendenied by Mukherjee, and the fact thatthe PM acknowledged the letter onJanuary 3, 2008, is clear evidence thatMukherjee knew.

There is clear evidence Bhardwaj knewthat Raja’s actions were wrong. In fact,he refused to give legal opinion, know-ing it would be subject to manipulation.w On October 26, 2007, a detailed brieffor legal opinion was sent to the law min-istry on the issue that triggered the spec-trum scam—what should the procedure

be for processing the 575 ap-plications? So, the law min-

ister knew.w Then law secretaryT.K. Vishwanathan

wrote on the opinionon November 1,

2007, suggesting there were severalcomplicated matters in what wassought. Bhardwaj wrote on November2, 2007, that these issues required to bereferred to an empowered GoM.

Ahluwalia was a member of the spec-trum GoM. He did not object and whenthe scam broke out, he was the first todefend Raja with the arguments:w The spectrum subsidy is similar tofood subsidy.w Auction is not always the best way toallocate scarce resources.

Vahanvati signed a file on January 7,2008, three days before the scam brokeon January 10, 2008. The following in-formation was available in that file:w The cut off date had been advancedfrom October 1, 2007, to September25, 2007. Vahanvati later unsuccess-fully defended this in the high courtand Supreme Court in the S Tel matter.w Manju Madhavan, the then director(finance) in the Telecom Commission,had objected and had been snubbed byRaja in his own handwriting. All of thiswas in the pages Vahanvati signed.w Raja’s letter to the PM on December26, 2007, which became the policydirective for issuance of LoIs and dualtechnology leading up to the scam ofJanuary 10, 2008, was reproduced inspecific terms on page 27 of the samefile, including the words “this has been

concurred by the SG”. Vahanvati notonly signed the file, he did not ob-ject to the claim.

Vahanvati, now Attorney Gene-ral, also violated the rules for lawofficers, which state no opinion can

be given by a law officer unlessrouted through the law secretary.

Vahanvati not only did so di-rectly, he also knew Bhardwajhad refused an opinion onNovember 2, 2007. n

GOVERNMENT KEPT IN THE LOOP

Hans Raj Bhardwajthen law minister

Montek Singh AhluwaliaDeputy Chairman,Planning Commission

Goolam VahanvatiSolicitor General, UPA 1

A. Raja claims he kept the prime minister informed about the spectrum sale.His Cabinet colleagues and their secretaries were aware of it too, he says.

AFP Photo

Manmohan SinghPRIME MINISTER

P. Chidambaramthen finance minister

Pranab MukherjeeChairman of GoM on spectrum

criminal conspiracy,forgery with purpose of cheating,using as genuine a forged document,cheatingCHARGED WITH

Days in prison 169 Maximum punishment Seven years

Cover story SPECTRUM SCAM

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BHASKAR PAUL /www.indiatodayimages.com

FORMER MANAGING DIRECTORETISALATDB TELECOM

criminal misconduct under the Prev-ention of Corruption Act. The agencybelieves it has enough to implicate him,but senior advocate in the SupremeCourt, Dushyant Dave, says, “CBI hasmade a hash of the investigation. Theywill find it difficult to prove most of whatthey are saying. I am surprised theSupreme Court has not come down hardon a selective and shoddy investigation.Any investigation under Section 120B ofthe IPC citing criminal conspiracy isincomplete without Niira Radia. Thereis a clear case of conspiracy betweenher, the licencees and Raja.” CBI directorA.P. Singh is putting together the finalchargesheet which focuses on tenuresof earlier telecom ministers PramodMahajan, Arun Shourie and DayanidhiMaran. It also looks at whether Loopwas a front for Essar and awaits the let-ters rogatory sent to Switzerland onMauritius-based Delphi Investmentswhich may hold the key to the tangledownership of Swan Telecom.

In its first chargesheet, the CBI

admitted that Raja, Chandolia andBehura did not have assets dispropor-

tionate to their income that would in-dicate they gained from allottingspectrum to favourites. “This is not acase like Sukh Ram where a ministerwas found with cash in his room whosesource he could not verify,” says a sen-ior legal expert. Government sourcesclaim the CBI was also under pressureto probe the Tatas for their involve-ment in the scam. “The CBI estimated aRs 22,000 crore loss from this scam. Ofthis, Rs 12,000 crore was made by theTatas. That is more than half theamount mentioned by the CBI. Where isthat man? Why isn’t he an accused?”argued Raja’s lawyer Sushil Kumar.

If issue of fresh shares for instancewas cleared by Chidambaram in thepresence of the prime minister, thenwhat is the monetary scam? Congressspokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvifeels there is no question of the trialcollapsing: “We should have faith in thejudicial system irrespective of results.”Homi Ranina, senior Supreme Courtadvocate, says, “Raja is only trying todefend himself. He is blaming theGovernment which he believes is

Cover story SPECTRUM SCAM

Telenor of Norway invested Rs 6,135 crore in Unitech Wireless for issueof new shares equivalent to 67.25 per cent stake, which was utilised forrollout of services by the company. Prior to the FDI from Telenor, Unitechand Unitech Wireless spent Rs 1,658 crore as licence fee and incurredsubstantial pre operating expenses, interest costs and gave a bankguarantee of Rs 882 crore. In fact, if you look at the rollout obligationstill June 30, 2011, of all the so-called beneficiaries, we have the mostrobust business with 26.33 million subscribers. Unitech applied onSeptember 24, 2007. Raja is accused of tweaking the cut offto September 25 in its favour.Two companies appliedafter us—Sistema Shyam and Selene Infrastructure.Shyam got all the licenses. So, how does thecharge apply to us? It applies to Shyam.Everyone who applied got spectrum except inDelhi while Swan got it in Delhi. We are still inthe queue after paying Rs 170 crore for theDelhi licence three years ago.

FORMER TELECOM SECRETARY

FORMER MD UNITECH WIRELESS

equally culpable, for he has merelyfollowed policy laid out before him. Fora start, CBI has to counter each andevery charge that Raja has levelled.Other accused will similarly makecharges.” There is a possibility of JudgeSaini calling Chidambaram as a witnessif he finds that Raja’s charges merit that.

The undercurrent in the courtroomand inside Tihar jail is: why are webeing singled out? Many of thembelieve the big fish have got away.Others reckon that all the beneficiariesneed to be tarred with the same brush,particularly Loop Telecom, Tatas andDatacom-Videocon. Loop will perhapsbe the focus of the final chargesheet,along with Maran. The accused believetheir right to liberty under Article 21 ofthe Constitution has been infringedupon, that they have been jailed with-out a trial on the basis of a chargesheet.CBI is under severe pressure to authen-ticate a host of things stretching fromconclusive interpretation of documentsthat formed the basis of the charges-heet, to proving the criminality of thoseaccused and denied bail. It has sought

HOWTHE SCAM UNFOLDEDn Aug 28, 2007 TRAI makesrecommendations on issue of newUASL/dual technology licenses butbans mergers and acquisitions forthree years.

n Sept 24, 2007 DoT announces acut off date of October 1, 2007, forlicenses. No mention of first-come,first-served policy.

n Oct 1, 2007 DoT receives 575applications for 2G spectrum.

n Oct 15, 2007 TRAI protests against DoT’s non-implementation of its recommendations.

n Oct 17, 2007 Raja approves inter-nal Telecom Commission decision,ignoring TRAI letter of October 15.

n Oct 19, 2007 DoT announcesacceptance of TRAI’s ‘no cap’recom-mendation, leaving room for multiplelicenses in each service area.Announces dual technology policy,allows acquisitions.

n Oct 25, 2007 DoT secretary D.S. Mathur and member (Finance)Manju Madhavan submit internalnote seeking auction for allocation ofUASL/2G spectrum.

n Nov 22, 2007 Finance secretarywrites to DoT secretary, asking him tohalt issuance of licenses, consult thefinance ministry and questions giv-ing spectrum in 2008 at 2001 prices.

n Nov 29, 2007 DoT secretary saysTRAI has “not recommended anychanges in entry fee/annual licencefee, and hence, no changes were considered in the existing policy”.

n Nov 30, 2007 Member (Finance)puts up note consistent with that of PM/finance secretary for revisionof entry fee.

n Dec 4, 2007 Raja rejectsmember’s note dated November 30.

MONEY SHARMA

criminal conspiracy, forgery with purpose ofcheating,using as genuine a forged document,cheatingCHARGED WITH

Days in prison 99 Maximum sentence Seven years

criminal conspiracy,forgery with purpose of cheating,using as genuine a forged document,cheatingCHARGED WITH

Days in prison 176 Maximum punishment Seven years

I took over as telecommunicationssecretary on January 1, 2008, and workedfor precisely five days and yet I am beingheld guilty before trial. What sort of justiceprevails in this country? My predecessorD.S. Mathur was secretary for 18 months tillhe retired on December 31, 2007, and he isout free. I am guilty because I worked withA. Raja in the environment ministry.Tell me, can I choose the ministers I work with?Thirty-odd years as a career bureaucrathave been washed away with this taint. I can tell you with complete conviction that Imade two important changes to the pressrelease issued on January 10, 2008, be-cause I believed what was written in it waswrong, but they were struck off by the min-ister. I have been jailed without a trial and Ican't do anything about it. It is a travesty.

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24 INDIA TODAY u AUGUST 8, 2011

Cover storyhelp from the Ministry of CorporateAffairs to ratify some of the documentsthat it presented before the JointParliamentary Committee as evidenceof “wrongdoing” against some of theaccused telecom companies.

New revelations are accentuatingthe government’s embarrassment.There is silence from Manmohan Singhand his office on Raja’s crucial decisionto hawk spectrum on a dodgy first-come first-served basis on January 10,2008. After a flurry of correspondencebetween Raja and the prime ministerin November and December 2008, par-ticularly the prime minister’s notedated November 2 where he articu-lated, “in order that spectrum useefficiency gets directly linked withcorrect pricing of spectrum, considerintroduction of a transparent method-ology of auction wherever legally andtechnically feasible and revision ofentry fee which is currently bench-marked on old spectrum auction fig-ures,” why did he suddenly go quiet?The Public Accounts Committee (PAC)hearings in mid-April broke down after

raucous scenes where the UPA allieswent on the offensive against the com-mittee which called on the primeminister’s principal secretary T.K.A. Nair and cabinet secretary K.M.Chandrasekhar to depose before it.

The PAC’s examination reveals astrange sequence of events relating tothe processing of Raja’s letter datedDecember 26, 2007, in the PMO. Theprocessing commenced from Decem-ber 31, 2007, and closed on January 31,2008. Raja’s letter and foreign minister

Pranab Mukherjee’s note with a sug-gested course of action was submittedto the prime minister on January 7,2008, 12 days after Raja wrote,“Discussions with the external affairsminister and the solicitor general haveenlightened me to take pre-emptiveand pro-active decisions on these issuesas per guidelines.” Armed with this let-ter and the prime minister’s ineffectualresponse of January 3, 2008, Rajathought he could go ahead with his pri-vately conducted and selective disbur-

With A. Raja’s allegations hit-ting the top echelons of gov-ernment, the BJP plans to

raise the issue on August 1, Day Oneof the monsoon session of Parlia-ment. Party president Nitin Gadkaritold INDIA TODAY that the prime min-ister and the home minister now hadnowhere to hide. “Raja ne inka bajadiya baaja (Raja has fixed them),” helaughed. He said the BJP will demandManmohan Singh and P. Chidam-

baram’s resignations. The party hasasked the CBI director to investigateChidambaram’s role in the 2G scam.

The Congress is ready with its de-fence. “Raja is an accused. In his des-peration he can say anything. Thecourts will decide on his comments. Iffor any minister’s wrongdoing, the PMis to be blamed, then many formerPMs will have to be interrogated withretrospective effect,” says CongressMP Sanjay Nirupam. The BJP says it isnot going to stall Parliament. Rather,it plans to corner the Government inthe House. According to Governmentsources, the issue is not whether eq-uity was divested or not, but the wayRaja tweaked the first-come first-served policy to favour some people.“This is something that Raja is silenton,” says a Congress general secre-tary. Telecom Minister Kapil Sibaloutlined the government’s defence tothe media. “The issue in the CBI

chargesheet is whether the first-come, first-served policy was misusedto favour A, B or C. It has nothing todo with the dilution of equity,” he says.About favouring the first-come, first-served policy over auction, Sibal, ex-plains that “the idea was to benefitconsumers. There are exampleswhere auction has gone awry.Besides, we followed the NDA’s first-come, first-served policy”. SaysCongress spokesperson AbhishekManu Singhvi, “No question of culpa-bility can arise as far as prime minis-ter and then finance minister areconcerned since no policy alterationwas made by them. On allegations ofwrongdoing, that is a matter betweenMr Raja and the courts.” The BJP is notbuying this. “The prime minister andthe home minister must resign onmoral grounds because they have lostall credibility,” says Gadkari.

by Priya Sahgal and Bhavna Vij-Aurora

TREASURYBENCHESIN PARLIAMENT

This whole thing is a sham.All three ofus from Reliance—Gautam Doshi,Surendra Pipara and myself—are notguilty of any crime and yet we have beencharged and jailed without trial. We arevery clear in our mind that there is nobreach of cross-holding norms since weexited from Swan much before the cutoffs were changed by DoT.All this is onrecord. Our lawyers will argue on thesepoints. Our defence will be joint and weare confident that we will get justice.VICE-PRESIDENT

RELIANCE ADAG

READYTO FIRE

SIPRA DAS/www.indiatodayimages.com

criminal conspiracy,forgery with purpose ofcheating,using as genuine a forged document plus abetmentCHARGED WITH

Days in prison 99 Maximum punishment Seven years

The Congress readies its defence.The BJP says it willreiterate Raja’s allegations in Parliament.

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26 INDIA TODAY u AUGUST 8, 2011

Cover story SPECTRUM SCAM

Straight Collusion After takingover as telecommunications minis-ter on May 17, 2007, Raja and re-alty companies that he had knownfrom his environment ministrydays—Swan (DB Realty), Unitech—began to influence TelecomRegulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recommendations dated August 28, 2007. Therecommendations were madewhen there were a mere 100-oddapplications and applied in a situa-tion when 575 applications hadcome in for 2G spectrum.Brazen Action Raja did so by ig-noring three letters from TRAI

dated October 15 and 19, 2007,and January 14, 2008. He violatedmultiple recommendations of TRAI,including those banning mergersand acquisitions through the backdoor in violation of the TRAI Act,2000, and (on October 19, 2007,

gave them a soft indication thatthey will be able to sell at abumper profit). The manipulationof the TRAI Act allowed the acquisi-tion of Unitech, Swan, TataTeleservices and S Tel since he re-versed the suggestions on acquisi-tions but stopped mergers (M&Aguidelines of April 22, 2008 andDoT press release dated October19, 2007).Changed the Mechanics He alsochanged the formula suggested byTRAI for calculating revenueshare/spectrum charge in case ofdual technology licenses. He did soby ignoring advice from the lawministry, the prime minister,finance ministry and other sources,including TRAI, which stressed theneed to determine entry fee basedon a market mechanism underSection 2.73 of the Act.Favoured a Handful All of theseactions have been documented inthe FIR by the CBI (Pages 57-60) ofApril 2, 2011. Raja also manipu-lated the first-come, first-servedpolicy by replacing ‘date of applica-tion’ with ‘date of compliance ofLoI/date of payment’. He selected afavoured few by illegally advancingthe cut-off date from October 1,2007, to September 25, 2007,which was later held illegal by theDelhi High Court and by theSupreme Court, thereby letting the‘ineligible’ get access to precious 2G spectrum.Ignored Advice TRAI changed theTRAI recommendations (which is il-legal), Cabinet advice from the fi-nance minister and law minister(which violates the Government ofIndia Transaction of BusinessRules) and the prime minister’s di-rection for auction, according to hisNovember 2, 2007 letter.Jumped the Queue The formerminister set up a system whereincompanies were moved ahead inthe queue and given spectrum at aprice fixed in 2001 and were thenallowed, through a violation of theM&A norms of the TRAI, to sell atmarket prices in 2008-09.

The former telecomminister ignored advice,tweaked rules and cherry-picked recommendations

sal of letters of intent. A day after this,T.K.A. Nair conveyed the primeminister’s desire to take into account thedevelopments concerning the issue oflicenses. Former telecommunicationsminister Shourie told INDIA TODAY, “If allthat was done with Swan-Etisalat was inline with the government’s foreignequity policy, why is it that the PranabMukherjee-headed finance ministryissued a Rs 7,100 crore show-causenotice of penalty to the same Etisalat forFEMA violations? If rules have not beenviolated, why has the ED cracked down?”

This file (signed by Vahanvati onJanuary 7, 2008) was resubmitted tothe prime minister on January 15,2008, with a clarification. It was re-turned with T.K.A. Nair’s noting, whichis most damaging: “PM wants this infor-mally shared with the department andwants PMO to be at arm’s length.” OnJanuary 3, 2008, by merely acknowl-edging Raja’s letter, Manmohanseemed to have given an indirect signalto go ahead with his plans. So whathappened between November 2, 2007,and January 10, 2008, whenManmohan allowed Raja to do prettymuch as he pleased? Why did the primeminister succumb to pressure and whobrought it on? Was it his coalitionpartner DMK? The PMO never botheredto intervene and enforce the transac-tion of business rules to sort out thesevere divergence of opinion betweenthe law ministry and the Raja-helmedDOT. The PAC’s indictment asks, “Thepoint remains to be answered as towhat preceded January 10, 2008, andreasons for everyone remaining mutespectators till the damage was done.”

Singhvi defends his party: “Oneneeds to make a fundamental bifurca-tion between nepotistic wrongdoing,which forms CBI’s criminal chargeagainst Raja, as opposed to policydecisions in respect of which no suchallegations exist regarding then financeminister or the prime minister.”

BJP leader and JPC member YashwantSinha counters, “The nation wantsanswers. We want to grill the treasurybenches.” The trial court’s proceedingswill run parallel to Parliament,providing enough ammunition to anOpposition on the rampage. n

WHERE DID RAJAGO WRONG?

SIPRA DAS/www.indiatodayimages.com

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