New Delhi: A Raja, the former telecom minister who allegedly pivoted one of India's top-ranking scams, will not be allowed to testify for a parliamentary committee assigned to fix accountability for how ineligible companies were given valuable licenses for mobile networks in 2008.
At the time,
Mr Raja, a senior leader of the DMK, was Telecom Minister. He later spent over a year in prison along with some of India's best-known executives on charges of criminal conspiracy, forgery and bribery.
The telecom scam is being investigated by the CBI and tried by a special court in Delhi. Last year, the Supreme Court cancelled 122 licenses assigned by
Mr Raja.
"It is perhaps unprecedented that an issue has attracted the simultaneous attention of so many agencies. Unfortunately however, the truth is being suppressed,"
Mr Raja wrote in a letter to the speaker of the Lok Sabha on February 22. He said he would like to present the "sequence of events and the roles of various individuals and institutions" to the parliamentary committee. (
Read letter)
The committee, which includes opposition members, is headed by Congress leader P Chacko and is scheduled to present its report by the end of the ongoing Budget Session of Parliament. Sources say that if
Mr Raja is allowed to testify, other ministers who have handled telecom before and after him will have to meet with the committee, an unappealing prospect for many parties, especially given the deadline for the inquiry.
But
Mr Raja's party, the DMK, which has stood by him, told the Congress recently that it supports his wish. The DMK is a senior member of the Prime Minister's fragile coalition, and Congress leaders will have to tread carefully. They will point out that the majority of the parliamentary committee was not in favour of
Mr Raja's deposition.
Mr Raja has said repeatedly that the Prime Minister and Finance Minister P Chidambaram were aware of the policies he implemented, and did not over-rule him while he was allocating telecom licenses.