PMO to make public PM, Raja correspondence

The prime minister’s office (PMO) on Wednesday agreed to disclose correspondence between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then telecommunications minister A Raja, allegedly involved in the 2G spectrum scam case, to an applicant under the Right to Information Act.

In a statement, the PMO clarified that it had never denied revealing the letters exchanged between the two to anyone.

In a recent order, the Central Information Commission (CIC) directed the PMO to reveal the contents of the letters to the information seeker. “Applicants who have earlier sought copies of correspondence between Raja and the prime minister have already in the past been provided these copies by the PMO.

“In the case reported, the actual request made was not for these letters. As the commission, after consulting the applicant, has reframed the request as requiring disclosure of the aforementioned correspondence, copies of the same would be made available to the applicant in this case as well,” the statement said.

Prime Minister’s Media Advisor Harish Khare said: “As the (Central Information) Commission, after consulting the applicant, has reframed the request as requiring disclosure of the aforementioned correspondence, copies of the same would be made available to the applicant in this case...”

Contending that a wrong impression had gone out on the application issue, Khare underlined that the PMO had always, in response to RTI applications, provided the information sought. “Applicants who have earlier sought copies of correspondence between Shri Raja and the Prime Minister have already in the past been provided these copies by the PMO,” he said.