New Delhi:
Even though the Prime Minister has refused to comment on him for now, Telecom minister A Raja's troubles may not end soon. A former Secretary in the Telecommunications Department, D S Mathur, has made some startling allegations about the minister. (
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Mathur claims that he did not okay the controversial decision of Raja to advance the cut-off date for processing applications for licences from October 1, 2007 to September 25 of that year. The former Telecom Secretary says, "The minister had asked me to advance the cut-off date...but I refused stating that it would be against the principles of natural justice."
The former senior Telecom official also claims that he had resisted the Minister's attempts to give licences without first coming out with a transparent policy. "When the Minister did not listen to my counsel, I told the joint secretary concerned that I would not sign any files on licensing matters, therefore no files should be put up before me," Mathur says.
Mathur says that the minister, in May 2007, told him he wanted to award around 500 new licences, to which he, Mathur, said it was not possible because there was not much of spectrum, and if such a large number of licences were given and the government failed to give spectrum, companies could move court".
The Department of Telecom (DoT) says that DS Mathur was part of all discussions and he signed the note on the file on November 7, 2007.
Many - including the government's auditor - have held Raja responsible for grossly under-valuing the 2G spectrum and costing the government thousands of crores by choosing not to auction it. A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), to be tabled in Parliament, has indicted Raja.
(Read: CAG slams Raja for 'ignoring advice on 2G without logic')The CAG report says, "The Honourable Minister of Communication & IT, for no apparent logical or valid reasons, ignored the advice of Ministry of Law and Ministry of Finance, avoided the deliberations of the Telecom Commission to allocate 2G spectrum, a scarce finite national asset at less than its true value on flexible criteria and procedures adopted to benefit a few operators."