PC favoured spectrum allocation: CBI

2G case: Finance Minister gives clean chit to Chidambaram at Sonias behest

In contrast to assertions made in a note by a finance ministry official in March this year, which was produced before the court by Janata Party President Subramaniam Swa­my, senior counsel K K Venugopal maintained on behalf of the CBI that the then finance minister always preferred auction to first-come-first-serve formula for sale of spectrum.

Appearing before a bench of justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly, the counsel submitted that the finance minister himself could not have canc­elled the licence as was claimed in the office memorandum.

“The finance ministry’s consistent stand has been for the auction. The finance minister himself could not have cancelled the licence as it was a major decision to be taken by the government itself. The decision cannot result in any criminality,” Venugopal said.

He also challenged Swamy, who sought probe against Chidambaram in an application before the apex court, asking why he did not question the role of different officials of the finance ministry as they were also responsible for ratifying the decision of then telecom minister A Raja. “Why are you pointing out at finance minister only for what a lot of officials did,” he said.

Significant note

Venugopal also referred to a “quite significant” note sent by the finance secretary on November 2, 2007 to the prime minister’s office saying that the minister had favoured a mechanism where there was a “level playing field” among the telecom players.

He also read out a statement of the then finance secretary D Subbarao, recorded by the CBI, to say that the ministry had always wanted auction while the decision for not going for auction was that of the then telecom minister only. The counsel tried to impute motives to the application of Swamy claiming “it was an easy thing to target the then finance minister as it will get the headlines”.  However, he was immediately obstructed by the Vench which said it was not concerned with things happening outside the courtroom.

Venugopal had on September 22 submitted that Chidamabaram cannot be held responsible for the decision not to auction the radio waves as the Ministry of Finance was represented on the issue by the finance secretary during its meeting with the Ministry of Telecom, then headed by A Raja.

“While the meeting of the Telecom Commission was postponed from January 9 to January 15 in 2008, the DoT on January 10, 2008 issued 122 LoIs (Letter of Intents).

“The DoT did not want the commission to go into it. The base price of 2001 (for the spectrum) which was extended in 2003 continued. The DoT jumped the gun,” he had said.
The counsel had said that Chidamabaram could not have taken the decision himself on the spectrum issue without consulting his subordinate officials, including the then finance secretary Subbarao, now the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.