New Delhi:
Arguing his defence in court, former telecom secretary Sidharth Behura, blamed former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and RBI Chief D Subbarao said being a bureaucrat his job was only to implement the policy framed by the government.
"On Dec 4th, 2007, a meeting was called to discuss entry fee. At this meeting, the then Finance Secretary D Subbarao (now RBI Chief) raised an objection saying that the fee should be hiked. D S Mathur (the then Telecom Secretary) defended the existing fee structure. Chidambaram (the then FM) was present at this meeting. If an objection was raised, the matter should have gone to the cabinet. But Subbarao withdrew his objection and subsequently, a note was issued approving the entry fee policy which was signed by all present. "
Not stopping with Chidambaram, Behrua instead claimed the entire cabinet was to blame for the course of action that was followed
"The entire cabinet has collective responsibility for the policy that was formulated. The government has publicly defended the policy. Why am i being made a scapegoat? "
Behura added that his job was only to formulate policy, and added that the court was not competent to adjudicate on policy decisions.
"I'm a bureaucrat. I had no role in formulating the policy. My job was only to implement the policy framed by the govt. First it has to be decided whether the policy was bad. Only then can we talk about someone's misconduct. But deciding whether a policy is correct or not is outside the purview of this court. This court is not competent to analyse policy decisions. I'm being falsely penalised.
"D S Mathur (Behura's predecessor) should have been an accused and not a witness. It's a complete violation of the due process of law that a witness has been made an accused and an accused a witness. "
Behura is facing similar charges to Raja. The CBI has argued that "Behura played an active role in giving licences to Swan Telecom, promoted by Shahid Usman Balwa, despite objections. " It has also charged Behura of cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and corruption. and has opposed his application for bail, saying that he doctored the list of telecom licence applicants...
Over the next three days, the IT department will quiz A Raja, Shahid Balwa, Vinod Goenka of Etisalat D B (Swan), Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair, Surendra Pipara of ADAG (July 27 to 29).