Sack Union Minister Raja for his involvement in the Spectrum Scam: Jayalalithaa Demands

Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and All Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(AIADMK) Supremo Ms Jayalalithaa has urged the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to drop Union Telecoms Minister A Raja from the Cabinet for his alleged involvement in the Rs 1 lakh crore Spectrum Scam.

In a statement issued on Saturday reacting to the recent Supreme Court order, refusing to intervene in a Delhi High Court order that had found violation in the 2G Spectrum allocation by the Minister, Jayalalithaa, said, 'Only if the Prime Minister sacks Mr Raja, it will give credence to his claim that he is a Prime Minister with zero tolerance for corrupt practices'.

Further she said the CBI is now investigating the case and ''given his track record, Mr Raja will leave no stone unturned in preventing them from getting to the facts. The interests of justice will be served only if Raja is removed from his post as Union Minister.'' Now that he has the Supreme Court’s order to back him, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should not hesitate further to sack the Minister, Jayalalithaa said.

Jayalalithaa recalled the alleged scam, she said the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had, through a press release on the night of September 24, 2007, announced the last date for filing applications for allotment of 2-G Spectrum licenses as October 1, 2007.

Many companies filed their applications. STel, one of the players, applied for all the 22 circles. Of these, six applications were filed on September 25. Applications for all the other circles were completed by September 28, well before the officially announced cut-off-date, she added.

Jayalalithaa also said through a press note released at 1445 hrs on January 10, 2008, without assigning any reasons, DoT arbitrarily announced that it had decided to change the cut-off-date to September 25, 2007. It further asked the applicants to remit the license fee between 1530 hrs and 1630 hrs the same day, through demand draft.

''It is a mystery as to how the applicant companies could have arranged demand drafts of around Rs 1,500 crore each within an hour, unless they had been provided prior information of who the allottees were. The whole exercise smacked of blatant favoritism and insider trading,'' Jayalalithaa claimed..

Jayalalithaa further said, many of the applicants were caught unaware and could not submit their demand drafts within the stipulated time. Companies like STel further discovered that by changing the cut-off-date, their applications submitted after September 25 had been rendered ineligible.

It was this sudden and retrospective reversal of the cut-off-date that STel had challenged in the Delhi High Court. However, DoT appealed against the verdict before the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court headed by Chief Justice A P Shah, which upheld the earlier verdict, she said.

Both before the Single Judge Bench as well as before the Division Bench headed by the Chief Justice, DoT claimed that both the policy (first-cum-first-served basis) for allotment of Spectrum as well as the change in cut-off-date had been finalised ''with the concurrence of the Prime Minister'', Jayalalithaa added.

After the Delhi High Court rejecting DoT’s claims, DoT went on appeal to the Supreme Court, but interestingly, deleted the claim that the Prime Minister had concurred with all its actions. During the pendency of the case, Mr Raja, through a junior DoT official, issued a two-line order to STel on March 6, 2010, after office hours, ordering ''closure of services due to security concerns'', she said.

Ms Jayalalithaa further said, the ''security concerns'' were not elaborated. No show-cause was served. This was the first time that the DoT issued a service discontinuation order without giving a show-cause notice. By March 8, STel had no alternative but to agree to withdraw their complaint against the Minister of Telecom in order to protect their business.

A compromise draft was prepared and signed and the same was presented on behalf of DoT before the Supreme Court by the Attorney General. But the Supreme Court refused to provide Raja any relief, Ms Jayalalithaa said.

''The evidence clearly shows that Raja had a very dubious role to play in the Rs One lakh crore scam. The sequence of events clearly shows that he is not averse to misusing his position as Union Minister to thwart proceedings against him,'' the former chief minister alleged.

- Asian Tribune -