Telecom Scam: Just Got Bigger

The 'All is well' chill-pill-in fact, the panacea for a biggy embroiled in any raging controversy-is perhaps the fact that law will take its own course.
For the telecom minister A Raja competing with the likes of CWG Organizing Committee headed by Suresh Kalmadi, to top the notoriety list, this is the simplest escape route.

The telecom minister sported high confidence, complimented by a smile while he faced media queries on his response to allegations leveled against him in the 2G spectrum scam and Supreme Court notice served to him. The Minister was composed and the anticipated reply was, “The allegations are politically motivated, because I did not favor a particular cartel.”
Could someone explain to Mr Raja the 'Glass half full, half empty' theory? Minister Saheb, look at it this way. You feel the heat of the legal notice because as you say, you did not favor a particular cartel, perhaps you sided with another.
A Raja is not new to controversies, a Masters in Law, is alleged to have to manipulated the norms resulting in a `70,000-crore scam in the grant of telecom licences in 2008.

Currently, he is actively looking at bailing out the “struggling” greenfield operators who got the licences in 2008. The telecom industry will not forgive Raja if he goes ahead with the bailout package.

Dethroning Raja
The hullabaloo around Raja's stepdown is not a recent one. The 2G ghost hasn't vanished yet and we hear another controversy cracking-it is to do with the allotment of franchisees for BSNL's recently launched WiMax services to a company owned by one of the Minister's close associates from Perambulur.
Then why is it difficult to dethrone him? An industry expert has an answer. The issue of 'gifting' 2G spectrum at throwaway prices amidst vehement objection by the Ministry of Finance and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is not just a legal issue, it is a matter of political equations, he says on condition of anonymity. When Dayanidhi Maran was replaced by Raja as the telecom minister in 2007, DMK was sure there was a bigger fish in store.

Raja was eager to allot 3G spectrum during his tenure. But his attempts were foiled after the Government decided to play safer and decided to refer the 3G auction to Group of Ministers (GoM).

According to a political commentator, who wishes not to be named, the minister has little to worry as his party is in a strong position. In the current parliament, in the UPA alliance, the DMK has some key profiles.
Ever since the worms wriggled out of the can, Raja has been defending himself stating he stuck to the rulebook, what his predecessors had followed from 1994. His justification is that his acts were for breaking the cartelization in the telecom sector and claimed that the aam admi would be benefited by his decisions.

He has succeeded in selling the argument to a segment of the telecom fraternity. SC Khanna, general secretary, Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) refuses to comment on the allegations against the minister, but he believes that his decisions have ushered in competition in the Indian telecom space. “The Minister has created competition in the market. He opened up the way for investments by the likes of DoCoMO in India and brought down the prices of the telecom services in the country,” Khanna says.
“Reliance Communications entered in to the GSM profile only after the dual policy was announced. Policy of competition was first initiated by the NDA government. Spectrum belongs to the country, what is wrong in using it for the good of the people?” he argues.
The recent policies have only made the market more competitive. In another 8-10 years there will be another Bharti or Vodafone in India,” Khanna adds.
However, the other lobby of the GSM service providers decline to comment.

The Bigger, the Dirtier
Telecom industry has always been a lucrative one. Flipping through the Indian telecom history one can spot some blemishes. Former communications minister Sukh Ram's conviction-in a case causing a loss of about `1.68 crore to the government in the award of a telecom equipment contract to a private firm-is one of them.
CBI had filed an FIR against Sukh Ram (the then Minister of State for Communication), Patalu Rama Rao, the industrialist and Runu Ghosh, who was then the director, finance, DOT, for scripting the scam.
The CBI is said to have recovered notepads and diaries from the Sukh Ram's Delhi house. Half-burnt documents recovered from the Mandi house led to suspicion that Sukh Ram's family was trying to conceal evidence. A raid at Runu Ghosh's house yielded `1.32 lakh in cash, `1 lakh in foreign currency, and 1 kg of gold.
Allegations of money changing hands were made when unified licensing was announced. But since this time the scam just got bigger, a whopping `70,000 crore loss to the government.
It has not just grown in size, it is dirtier too. The alleged neta has complete support from the Centre. The Minister had been given ten days to respond to the Supreme Court notice. CBI, who was another party to have received a notice in the matter has already responded asserting that it was probing the alleged irregularities in the 2G spectrum licenses distributed in 2008 by Telecom Minister A Raja in a 'fair and impartial' manner, and it was not in a position at this stage to deny or agree with the charges.
Meanwhile, the recent report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has added a new spin to the 2G spectrum scam. It has, in its latest communication, told the department of telecom (DoT) that a vast majority of the 126 licences controversially issued by the government in 2008 are illegal.

Interestingly, it was the Supreme Court intervention that got things moving in the Sukhram controversy. Will the apex court's involvement make a difference here as well? By the time this edition of V&D hits the stands, more developments will have happened. We will bring you more from this scam episode as and when law takes action.

Heena Jhingan
heenaj@cybermedia.co.in