New Delhi March 10:
The Public Accounts Committee is inching closer to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in its probe into the 2G spectrum scam with the panel preparing to examine principal secretary to the PM T K A Nair and cabinet secretary K M Chandrasekhar.
The parliamentary panel is looking at the government auditor's report on wide-ranging irregularities in allocation of scarce airwaves at a depressed price and by manipulating procedures. The PAC will also call Enforcement Directorate chief Arun Mathur. ED is looking at money trails in alleged payoffs.
The panel discussed calling Nair, Chandrasekhar and Mathur at its meeting on Tuesday and this could throw up the possibility of the committee acting on the PM's offer to present himself before the panel as members plan to closely question top officials on political and executive oversight. Earlier, the PM's letter to PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi divided the committee as opposition members feared this would pre-empt their demand for a joint parliamentary committee on the telecom fiddle. Congress managers also viewed the PAC as a means to dilute the JPC demand.
But now, with the JPC granted, opposition MPs in the PAC may not object to the PM's offer being accepted although they intend to concentrate on quizzing officials on issues like whether any attempt was made to oversee actions of arrested former telecom minister A Raja after he wrote to the PM on November 2, 2007 about going ahead with 2G allocations. (Read: CBI to question Kanimozhi and Kalaignar TV chief soon) Testimonies of serving telecom and finance secretaries, former telecom officials and regulators will serve as background to PAC examining issues like the PM's assertion that finance and telecom ministries concurred on 2G pricing, validity of the first-come, first-served policy and PMO's scrutiny of its application and rollout.
At the meeting of the PAC on Tuesday, former finance minister Yashwant Sinha strongly argued for the need for the committee to hear from officials of the PMO and cabinet secretariat. Sources in the committee said Sinha recalled the testimony of former telecom secretary D S Mathur before the PAC where the retired bureaucrat had said how his views on the 2007 spectrum and licensing policy were disregarded by sacked telecom minister A Raja. Mathur, in response to queries from PAC members, claimed to have apprised the PM of his marginalization in decision-making.
Sinha and other members also said PMO needed to explain whether it checked the veracity of Raja's claim — made in a communication to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh — that he had discussed the 2G policy with Pranab Mukherjee, then the external affairs minister. They also said the committee would need an explanation from both the cabinet secretariat and the PMO on finance ministry's sudden eviction from the spectrum pricing mechanism. While the PMO provided the committee with hundreds of documents, there is not much on telecom matters during earlier years. The committee secretariat is sifting through these papers and Nair might be asked about some of their contents.
With the PM himself saying that complaints began to trickle in after licences were awarded in January 2008, PAC members would want to know how the government reacted to reports of spectrum being sold by allottees — some not even eligible to have got spectrum — at large profits and failure of several firms to meet rollout of services obligations. The ED is understood to have made some headway in tracing funds moved from tax havens to front companies linked to Raja.
It has written to foreign governments seeking details of money transfers and is reasonably sure of gathering sufficient evidence to make out a case in court. The PAC will also call media organizations that published taped conversations recorded by the Income Tax department figuring lobbyist Niira Radia. The conversations with persons like Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi, industrialist Ratan Tata, journalists and MPs drew considerable media attention. The tapes indicated hectic lobbying to ensure Raja became telecom minister in UPA-2.
The Public Accounts Committee is inching closer to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in its probe into the 2G spectrum scam with the panel preparing to examine principal secretary to the PM T K A Nair and cabinet secretary K M Chandrasekhar.
The parliamentary panel is looking at the government auditor's report on wide-ranging irregularities in allocation of scarce airwaves at a depressed price and by manipulating procedures. The PAC will also call Enforcement Directorate chief Arun Mathur. ED is looking at money trails in alleged payoffs.
The panel discussed calling Nair, Chandrasekhar and Mathur at its meeting on Tuesday and this could throw up the possibility of the committee acting on the PM's offer to present himself before the panel as members plan to closely question top officials on political and executive oversight. Earlier, the PM's letter to PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi divided the committee as opposition members feared this would pre-empt their demand for a joint parliamentary committee on the telecom fiddle. Congress managers also viewed the PAC as a means to dilute the JPC demand.
But now, with the JPC granted, opposition MPs in the PAC may not object to the PM's offer being accepted although they intend to concentrate on quizzing officials on issues like whether any attempt was made to oversee actions of arrested former telecom minister A Raja after he wrote to the PM on November 2, 2007 about going ahead with 2G allocations. (Read: CBI to question Kanimozhi and Kalaignar TV chief soon) Testimonies of serving telecom and finance secretaries, former telecom officials and regulators will serve as background to PAC examining issues like the PM's assertion that finance and telecom ministries concurred on 2G pricing, validity of the first-come, first-served policy and PMO's scrutiny of its application and rollout.
At the meeting of the PAC on Tuesday, former finance minister Yashwant Sinha strongly argued for the need for the committee to hear from officials of the PMO and cabinet secretariat. Sources in the committee said Sinha recalled the testimony of former telecom secretary D S Mathur before the PAC where the retired bureaucrat had said how his views on the 2007 spectrum and licensing policy were disregarded by sacked telecom minister A Raja. Mathur, in response to queries from PAC members, claimed to have apprised the PM of his marginalization in decision-making.
Sinha and other members also said PMO needed to explain whether it checked the veracity of Raja's claim — made in a communication to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh — that he had discussed the 2G policy with Pranab Mukherjee, then the external affairs minister. They also said the committee would need an explanation from both the cabinet secretariat and the PMO on finance ministry's sudden eviction from the spectrum pricing mechanism. While the PMO provided the committee with hundreds of documents, there is not much on telecom matters during earlier years. The committee secretariat is sifting through these papers and Nair might be asked about some of their contents.
With the PM himself saying that complaints began to trickle in after licences were awarded in January 2008, PAC members would want to know how the government reacted to reports of spectrum being sold by allottees — some not even eligible to have got spectrum — at large profits and failure of several firms to meet rollout of services obligations. The ED is understood to have made some headway in tracing funds moved from tax havens to front companies linked to Raja.
It has written to foreign governments seeking details of money transfers and is reasonably sure of gathering sufficient evidence to make out a case in court. The PAC will also call media organizations that published taped conversations recorded by the Income Tax department figuring lobbyist Niira Radia. The conversations with persons like Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi, industrialist Ratan Tata, journalists and MPs drew considerable media attention. The tapes indicated hectic lobbying to ensure Raja became telecom minister in UPA-2.
