In yet another instance of the Congress-dominated JPC’s selective picking up of documents to base its draft report on the 2G scam and to insulate Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram, the PC Chacko-headed panel completely blacked out the Pranab Mukherjee-approved Office Memorandum (OM) of the Finance Ministry to the PMO.
Not without reason. The 13-page note of Mukherjee, which detailed the decade-long telecom scenario, found no fault during the NDA regime but indicted Chidambaram for his failure to prevent the 2G scam and pointed to the fact that the Prime Minister had prior knowledge of former Telecom Minister A Raja’s dubious designs.
The OM (dated March 25, 2011) was prepared by the Finance Ministry, headed by Mukherjee then, to apprise the PMO and the Prime Minister of the happenings in the telecom sector with regard to issue of licenses and spectrum.
The note, approved by Mukherjee, clearly indicated that the UPA regime diluted and manipulated the crucial Cabinet decision of October 2003 during the NDA Government. The Cabinet had decided that spectrum pricing should be jointly decided by the Finance Minister and the Telecom Minister and had paved way for new UASl regime in allotting licences and spectrum.
The note punctured Chidambaram’s claims about his advocacy for auction and detailed each and every meeting of him with the former Telecom Minister A Raja on spectrum pricing and offloading of shares. It pointed out how on several occasions the officials of Finance Ministry alerted Chidambaram before and after the execution of the 2G scam on January 10, 2008. Even a day before the execution of the scam, Chidambaram was alerted by his officers.
“Subsequently, in a meeting held on January 30, 2008 between the then Ministers of Finance and Telecommu
nications, (Chidambaram and Raja) it was noted by the then Finance Minister that he was for now not seeking to revisit the current regimes for entry fee or revenue share,” said the note.
Blaming Chidambaram for asking his officials to keep “non-paper” method in interacting with DoT, the OM indicted him for dereliction of duty as Finance Minister by not preventing the 2G scam. The note clearly said, Chidambaram could have objected to the dubious allotment of Raja and tainted licences could have been cancelled.
The note pointed out that DoT has every right to cancel the issued licences if any irregularity was found or in the public interest by invoking Clause 5.1 of the telecom licence agreement.
“DoT could have invoked this clause for canceling licences in case MoF had stuck to the stand of auctioning the 4.4 MHz spectrum. Perhaps some litigations would have arisen as a consequence…However, these were not charged (beyond the normal spectrum usage charges) since there was consensus, at the levels of the Ministers concerned, that spectrum beyond the ‘start up’ levels only should be charged.,” said the note showing Chidambaram being in agreement with Raja.
The Mukherjee-approved note detailed as many as 21 communications between Prime Minister, PMO and Finance Ministry about the 2G spectrum allotment matter from April 2004. The note annexed all letters and communication in this regard, which clearly shows that Prime Minister and his office had prior knowledge about the happening in the telecom sector.
Neither the PMO nor the Finance Ministry presented this crucial note before the JPC for a long time. As it became public, the note created ripples in UPA Government. Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy had dramatically presented it before the Supreme Court during his arguments on September 21, 2011.
The PMO and Finance Ministry were then forced to submit the note to JPC after the Opposition MPs demanded the production of this document. The JPC subsequently asked all departments to file an affidavit that they had submitted all documents.