New Delhi:
BJP leader and former Telecom Minister Arun Shourie will appear before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today in connection with its probe into the 2G spectrum scam.
He was asked by the CBI to join the 2G scam investigations in connection with the preliminary inquiry registered by the agency following Supreme Court direction.
Shourie has offered to explain to the agency all that he knows about the spectrum allocation case and is expected to give information about whether the first-come first-serve policy cleared by the Vajpayee government was followed or not.
Shourie claimed that he had told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the scam in 2009 but got no response. He also said he had introduced the informant, the man who had the details of the undue favours given to various firms, to the CBI but the agency gave no response. According to Shourie, the CBI said it needed the PM's nod to act against the then Telecom Minister A Raja.
Shourie, who was the Telecom Minister in the NDA regime, slammed the Justice Shivraj Patil report on the 2G spectrum, following which a war of words broke out between him and the current Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal.
Shourie called the report "a command performance from Kapil Sibal in order to protect Raja." Sibal shot back at Shourie and asked him to substantiate his allegations. "What Shourie says, he must prove", Sibal told NDTV. (Read: Sibal acts like 'A Raja's advocate', says Arun Shourie)
The Justice Patil report, which NDTV has access to, states that telecom rules were tweaked to help Tata Teleservices during the NDA regime. It also details how, it says, Swan Telecom benefited during A Raja's tenure as Telecom Minister. (Watch: Rules were tweaked to help Tata: Patil Report)
The report says that two major policy shifts were seen - one during the NDA regime and the other during UPA rule. Arun Shourie was the Telecom Minister in the NDA regime during the period that the Patil report mentions.
He was asked by the CBI to join the 2G scam investigations in connection with the preliminary inquiry registered by the agency following Supreme Court direction.
Shourie has offered to explain to the agency all that he knows about the spectrum allocation case and is expected to give information about whether the first-come first-serve policy cleared by the Vajpayee government was followed or not.
Shourie claimed that he had told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the scam in 2009 but got no response. He also said he had introduced the informant, the man who had the details of the undue favours given to various firms, to the CBI but the agency gave no response. According to Shourie, the CBI said it needed the PM's nod to act against the then Telecom Minister A Raja.
Shourie, who was the Telecom Minister in the NDA regime, slammed the Justice Shivraj Patil report on the 2G spectrum, following which a war of words broke out between him and the current Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal.
Shourie called the report "a command performance from Kapil Sibal in order to protect Raja." Sibal shot back at Shourie and asked him to substantiate his allegations. "What Shourie says, he must prove", Sibal told NDTV. (Read: Sibal acts like 'A Raja's advocate', says Arun Shourie)
The Justice Patil report, which NDTV has access to, states that telecom rules were tweaked to help Tata Teleservices during the NDA regime. It also details how, it says, Swan Telecom benefited during A Raja's tenure as Telecom Minister. (Watch: Rules were tweaked to help Tata: Patil Report)
The report says that two major policy shifts were seen - one during the NDA regime and the other during UPA rule. Arun Shourie was the Telecom Minister in the NDA regime during the period that the Patil report mentions.
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